If the repository is following the usual patterns (which is slightly more likely for Git repos than other VCS, in my experience) then you want the master
branch for stable releases. In theory, if it's in master
then it should be tested and working, so the most recent commit to master
should be the most recent stable release.
Looking at the repo you linked, I go straight to the "branches" section, and see "master". Clicking on that, I see that this commit is tagged REL1_21
, which I assume means release 1.21, which I'm guessing corresponds to the name for this version used within their documentation. That's a good place to start.
Quickly scanning up from there, I see mostly commits by a bot, updating localisation. Probably nothing breaking in there. There's also one commit that mentions a change. If they're doing things properly, this should be a fix, and definitely not a breaking change, because it's a commit to master
without a version tag. Checking the comment on this commit, I see that it mentions steps taken to preserve backwards compatibility.
Now that I'm happy that nothing bad has been pushed to master
since the last release, I simply grab the latest commit: at time of writing, that's this one. If I have problems with this version, or if I wasn't convinced that the change was safe, I'd get the last tagged commit, and stick with it until they add a version to master
tagged with something higher than 1.21, (which, based on a quick guess at their versioning system, would be either REL1_22
or REL2_0
).
Of course, one would hope that the project's documentation would point you to the correct version, rendering this process of figuring it out yourself unnecessary, but sadly that isn't always the case. When you find yourself in this situation, the process I used here works for most repositories, Git or otherwise, provided a vaguely sensible branching strategy has been used:
- Find a branch called "main", "master", "stable" or something similar
- Find the last version-tagged commit to that branch
- Check nothing odd has been added to that branch - anything that might introduce breaking changes
- If there's nothing, grab the latest commit
- If there is a potentially problematic change, grab the tagged commit
- Either way, if you have problems with the version you have, move back to the previous tagged commit.
- When you find a version that works, stick with it until they release a new tagged version, then get that. If it doesn't work, move back to the one you were on before and wait for a new version.