Git branch policy in the CTA development workflow

Summary

At the moment we have a few stale git branches which were not created using our issue → MR → branch workflow.

As they were not created following this procedure, they end up accumulating and need to be manually cleaned up.

Desired workflow

For more info, check the Contributing section on the CTA Docs.

• Before starting any development work, ensure that it's covered by an issue on the CTA Gitlab project. Please always follow the guidelines, including assigning all the necessary labels.
• Any development branch meant to be merged into main should be created using the "Create merge request" button. This will ensure that the new branch is created with the right name (<issue-number>-<issue-title>) and that it's assigned to a new merge request.
  • After the MR is completed, the branch will be automatically deleted.
• Any other branches (eg. benchmarking or testing), can be created with the "Create branch" dropdown button. This will not create a MR, but will keep a link between the new branch and the corresponding issue.
  • These branches needs to be manually deleted once no longer necessary.