/promoting-dev-to-main

name: promoting-dev-to-main
description: Use when preparing, reviewing, resolving conflicts for, or merging a CORAL release pull request from the long-lived dev branch into main.

Promoting dev to main

Core rule

Merge `dev → main` release PRs with a **merge commit**. Never squash or rebase these promotions.

Ordinary contribution PRs still target `dev` and may be squash-merged. The release promotion is the exception because `main` must retain `dev` in its ancestry. Squashing a promotion makes the next release re-present old commits and can create large false conflicts.

Workflow

1. Confirm the PR is exactly `base=main`, `head=dev` and no duplicate release PR is open. 2. Review `main..dev`, required CI, and deployment checks. 3. In GitHub, open the merge-method dropdown and choose **Create a merge commit**. With the CLI, use:

   gh pr merge <number> --repo Human-Agent-Society/CORAL --merge

4. Keep the long-lived `dev` branch. Do not delete or force-push it. 5. Fetch both branches and verify the released `dev` tip is an ancestor of `main`:

   git fetch origin dev main
   git merge-base --is-ancestor origin/dev origin/main

Exit status `0` is required. 6. Confirm post-merge CI, release automation, deployments, and production smoke checks.

If GitHub reports conflicts

Do not force-rebase the shared `dev` branch. First inspect the topology and reproduce conflicts with `git merge-tree`.

If an earlier release was squash-merged, `main` may have the same tree as an earlier `dev` commit without sharing its ancestry. Verify tree equivalence before choosing a repair. Prefer merging `main` back into `dev` and pushing normally; use an ancestry-only `ours` merge only when exact tree equality proves `main` contains no unique content to preserve.

Red flags

• GitHub's primary button says **Squash and merge**.
• A command uses `--squash`, `--rebase`, or a force-push.
• The release workflow proposes deleting `dev`.
• Conflict resolution starts before checking commit topology and tree equality.

Stop when any red flag appears and return to the workflow above.

Quick reference

| PR | Allowed merge method | |---|---| | Feature/fix/docs branch → `dev` | Repository default; usually squash | | `dev` → `main` release promotion | Merge commit only |