Contributing

GauTracker uses a GitFlow branching model. The two long-lived branches are protected — never commit directly to them; all changes land via pull request.

Long-lived branches

Branch	Purpose	Receives merges from
main	Production. Tagged releases only.	release/*, hotfix/*
develop	Integration branch. Default branch; everyday target.	feature/*, release/*, hotfix/*

Working branches

Prefix	Branch off	Merge back into	Use for
feature/*	develop	develop	New features and non-urgent fixes
release/*	develop	main and develop	Stabilising a release (version bump, final fixes)
hotfix/*	main	main and develop	Urgent production fixes

Name branches descriptively, e.g. feature/card-search, hotfix/null-user-id.

Everyday workflow (features)

git checkout develop
git pull
git checkout -b feature/my-change      # branch off develop
# ... commit work ...
git push -u origin feature/my-change
gh pr create --base develop            # PR into develop

CI (build) must pass before a PR can merge. Branch protection requires a PR but 0 approvals, so you may self-merge once the check is green. Merged branches are deleted automatically.

Releases

git checkout -b release/x.y.z develop  # branch off develop
# bump version, final fixes, then:
gh pr create --base main               # merge release -> main
# tag main after merge:
git tag -a vx.y.z -m "x.y.z" && git push origin vx.y.z
# then merge the same changes back into develop
gh pr create --base develop --head release/x.y.z

Hotfixes

git checkout -b hotfix/x.y.z main      # branch off main
# fix, then PR into main, tag, and also PR back into develop

Pre-commit hooks

Before your first commit, install pre-commit and wire up the git hook. This scans every commit for accidentally-included secrets:

brew install pre-commit   # or: pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install        # run once per clone, from the repo root

See Docs/PreCommit.md for the full hook reference and how to handle findings.

Build & quality gates

Warnings are treated as errors (Directory.Build.props), so the CI build fails on any analyzer or code-style violation. Run dotnet build locally before pushing. See CLAUDE.md for architecture and build details.