Branch management rules

Main branches:

• The master branch contains the "production ready" code along with the tags for marking specific releases.
• The develop branch contains all current development work.

Supporting branches:

• A hotfix branch is the place to commit bug fixes.
  • Branches from master.
  • Must merge back into master and develop.
  • Naming convention: hotfix-* where * represents a bug fix version number.
• A release branch is a place to prepare new releases from the development branch.
  • Branches from develop.
  • Must merge back into master and develop.
  • Naming convention: release-* where * represents a new (sub-)release version number.
• A feature branch is where new features are implemented.
  • Branches from develop.
  • Merges back into develop.
  • Naming convention: #X_* where X is an issue number recording work for the new feature and * is a short descriptive name for the feature branch.

tl;dr -- If you are fixing bugs, please create pull requests to a hotfix branch (ask a repository maintainer to create one if it doesn't exist). If you are creating new features, create pull requests onto the develop branch.