[Development] Finishing the transition to the cherry-pick model

[Volker Hilsheimer]

> On 17 Apr 2020, at 15:06, Edward Welbourne <edward.welbourne at qt.io> wrote:
> 
> Volker Hilsheimer wrote:
>>>> 1) we will shut down the forward-merging bot next week
>>>> ....
>>>> 3) we will turn on the cherry-picking bot for all repositories
>>>> 
>>>> Expect this to happen in early May, but probaly not at the same time for all
>>>> repos. We will update the commit template to include a commented out “Pick-
>>>> to” footer.
> 
> On 17 Apr 2020, at 14:26, Alex Blasche <alexander.blasche at qt.io> wrote:
>>> Why would we accept a gap period during which the forward merging is
>>> already off and the cherry-picking bot is not yet on?
> 
> Volker Hilsheimer (17 April 2020 14:59)
>> Orchestrating the transition so that there is no gap at all introduces
>> a huge amount of complexity without any gain. The gap has no practical
>> impact. As long as we merge (no matter how), stuff committed directly
>> to 5.15 will reach dev this way. It might take a bit longer than usual
>> once we do it manually, but a merge taking a few days or even weeks is
>> not unusual today either.
>> 
>> We merge manually during the transition period, which gives us more
>> control. By the time we stop merging manually, the cherry-pick bot
>> will be in place.
> 
> Will changes committed to dev with Pick-To headers, before the 'bot is
> switched on, get picked back to other branches once the 'bot *is*
> switched on ?

No, the cherry-pick-bot does not scan the git history for commits from the past. It responds to change-merged events from gerrit.

Making sure that commits that might have ended up in a dev branch, with a “Pick-to” footer, before the bot was activated, requires a one-off manual check that we’ll take care of as part of the process.

Cheers,
Volker