Open Source Protocol

A guide for releasing and maintaining open source projects.

Accepting a GitHub Pull Request

Given you have this in your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
  co-pr = !sh -c 'git fetch origin pull/$1/head:pr/$1 && git checkout pr/$1' -

Check out the code by its GitHub pull request number:

git co-pr 123

Rebase interactively, squash, and potentially improve commit messages:

git rebase -i master

Look at changes:

git diff origin/master

Run the code and tests. For example, on a Ruby project:

bundle
rake

Merge code into master:

git checkout master
git merge pr/123 --ff-only

Push:

git push origin master

Clean up:

git branch -D pr/123

Edit the VERSION constant.
Run bundle install to update Gemfile.lock.
Run the test suite.
Edit NEWS, Changelog, or README files if relevant.
Commit changes. Use the convention "v2.1.0" in your commit message.
Run rake release, which tags the release, pushes the tag to GitHub, and pushes the gem to Rubygems.org.