SlimFlow Workflow

SlimFlow is heavily inspired by GitFlow and OneFlow, but strongly enforces some rules which are:

• Uses only one main branch called main.
• Has 3 different branch types:
  • Features (feature/)
  • Hotfixes (hotfix/)
  • Releases (release/)
• Primarily use --squash merges to keep history slim and streamlined.
  (This can be changed via the settings.)
• Use semantic versioning for releases and creates release tags prefixed with v (fe: v.1.0.0).

Install/Uninstall

# install
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LeaveAirykson/git-slimflow/main/bin/slimflow | bash -s install

# to update slimflow run
slimflow update

# uninstall
slimflow uninstall

Features

Feature branches can be short or long lived branches used to work on specific features to implement.

Create

git feature create [name]

Creates new feature branch based on currently check out branch via:
git checkout -b feature/[name] main

Publish

You can publish a feature to the remote:

git feature publish [name]

Pushes feature branch to origin via:
git push origin feature/[name]:feature/[name]

Finish

git feature finish [name]

• Squash merges branch into main branch via
  git merge --squash feature/[name] main
• Deletes feature/[name] branch locally

Releases

Release branches are short lived and exist only during creation. Therefore they have no publish option.

git release create 2.1.0

# with useNpmVersion 'on' you can use the phrases:
# 'major', 'minor', 'patch' to increment the version.
git release create major

Creates new release branch based on currently check out branch via:
git checkout -b release/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH] main

Finish

To finish a release first check out the branch and call finish.

git checkout release/v2.1.0
git release finish

• Squash merges branch into main via
  git merge --squash release/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH] main
• Creates a tagged commit in Semver syntax: v[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH]
• If autocreation of the changelog is active, it will trigger during this stage.
• Deletes release/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH] branch locally.
• Pushes the changes to the remote.

Hotfixes

Hotfixes are similar to how release branches work - they create a new version on the main branch.

# check out the version to hotfix
git checkout v2.1.0
git hotfix create 2.1.1

# with useNpmVersion 'on' you can omit the version
# as it falls back to 'patch' value.
git checkout v2.1.0
git hotfix create

Creates new hotfix branch based on currently check out branch via:
git checkout -b hotfix/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH]

Finish

To finish a hotfix first check out the branch and call finish.

git checkout hotfix/v2.1.1
git hotfix finish

• Squash merges branch into main via
  git merge --squash release/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH] main
• Creates a tagged commit in Semver syntax: v[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH]
• If autocreation of the changelog is active, it will trigger during this stage.
• Deletes hotfix/[MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH] branch locally.
• Pushes the changes to the remote.

Additional Settings

There are several settings for changing the behaviour of the changelog creation.

To change the setting simply call:

git config slimflow.[setting] "[value]"

# you can even set them globally
git config --global slimflow.[setting] "[value]"

General settings

Setting	Default	Desc
usenpmversion [on|off]	off	If active slimflow will use npm version to bump the version.

Type based settings

Setting	Default	Desc
featuremerge	--squash	Merge strategy of features
releasemerge	--squash	Merge strategy of releases
hotfixmerge	--squash	Merge strategy of hotfixes

Changing merge strategies

The merging strategies can be changed or disabled for every type via:

git config slimflow.[name]merge "--no-ff"

# sets merge strategy for features to no fast forward
git config slimflow.featuremerge "--no-ff"

# disables merge strategy for features and falls back to default setting
git config slimflow.featuremerge ""

# you can even set it globally
git config --global slimflow.featuremerge ""

Changelog settings

Slimflow can create a changelog file/entry based on your commit history. It can recognize different flags (commit prefixes) for seperating them into categories.

Setting	Default	Desc
createchangelog [on|off]	off	De-/Activates changelog autocreation
includemisc [on|off]	on	Include no flagged commits in Misc category
ticketpattern		Regex pattern to recognize Ticket names
commiturl		Url to detail view of commit where {commit} gets replaced with commit hash
ticketurl		Url to ticket system where {ticket} gets replaced with ticket name
compareurl		Url to repository compare url between versions

Notice to the url settings

The settings for commiturl, ticketurl and compareurl are used during changelog creation to link commit hashes, ticketnames and Release names to their related detail view in your repository hoster and ticket system.

Commit flag prefixes

Commit starts with	Category
[break]	Breaking changes
[add]	Added
[change]	Changed
[fix]	Bug fixes

Commits without any flag prefix will be ignored in output. This can be changed via:

git config slimflow.includemisc "on"

This will include a Category named Misc in the changelog.