Need a Git workflow that works for us

[keithpickering]

I’m hoping someone can point me toward a workflow that will make sense for our setup, because sorting through all the conflicting information online has proven somewhat useless.

We have been using a modified version of the “GitFlow” workflow for the past few months. These are the permanent branches we have:

• master (contains production-ready code)
• beta (contains the latest “demo” for the client)
• develop (contains the latest work for the project)

As you can see, our workflow differs from the traditional GitFlow in that we have a beta branch in addition to develop. As such, we often have to include individual features (from feature branches) in beta without merging in the entirety of develop. This is where our problems arise.

When we create a feature branch from develop, it is synced with develop frequently. This means that when we try to merge in a feature to beta, it includes tons of unwanted commits that happened on develop.

The only “solution” we’ve been able to find is to manually recommit (or cherry-pick) changes from feature branches into beta. This is very counterintuitive and I know there has to be a better way.

Another problem is that when we need to create a hotfix for the entire project (to be applied to all branches), we create it from master, and it won’t merge into develop without an insane amount of merge conflicts. This could also be done via cherry-picking, but we absolutely need our workflow to be accomplished 100% using the GitHub desktop app and website. I’m familiar with the command line but I’ve been given explicit instructions that we can’t rely on it.

One option I’ve considered is to try a rebase-centric workflow rather than a merge-based one, but this is problematic as rebasing isn’t nearly as simple as merging (and I don’t even think it’s possible to do without the command line).

Please help!! There has to be a simple way to do this and we’re just not seeing it.

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