We use Github and Smartgit.
We are often finding we have lots of "old" branches that clutter up our repos and cause confusion among our Dev team, I can use: git branch --merged for a lot of this.
So I'm seeking to define the rules for safely deleting a branch from an upstream repo, here (in English) is my suggested "algorithm":
Identify candidate branches by running:
git branch -r --merged
For each listed branch on our main/upstream repo
For each fork of the repo
If there is no fork that has additional commits on the branch Then
If there is no local repo that has additional commits on the branch Then
Delete the branch.
Admittedly this can't be automated (because of the local repos) but I want to establish if these rules are sound and sufficient for safely deleting.
If so I can document and have all developers made aware of the overall algorithm.
Next question, if the above is sound is there any tool we can run that can automatically check every fork? Or must I (in an admin capacity) create a remote for everyone's fork so that I can see all of these when I run the command with the -r option?
I would imagine that this could be a GREAT feature for Github to provide because they know about all of the forks.
It wouldn't be a great thing perhaps for popular open source repos, but for private companies with just a handful of (per developer) forks it could be extremely useful.
Comments, suggestions appreciated!