Effectiveness of Tool: github-default-branch - Samvera Branch Renaming Working Group

Setup

• Create a test repo with a master branch, issues, PRs - See samvera-labs/branch-renaming-wg for a script to do this.
• Within the test repo, create a wiki page that references a branch in master.
• Within the test repo, add branch settings under Settings → Branches
• Create a Fork of the test repo.
• Clone the test repo to your local machine.
• Clone the Fork to your local machine.
• Create a second repo with a pin in the Gemfile to a master sha in the repo having the branch renamed

Tool: gitHub-default-branch

Reference: 

• https://github.com/mheap/github-default-branch

Usage:

• install with 

  npm install -g github-default-branch

• run with

  github-default-branch --pat <github_access_token> --repo <github_username>/branch-renaming-test

• Once complete, all local clones will need to run the following to update their master branch to be connected to origin/main

From the directory for the local clone…

  git checkout master
  git pull
  git branch -m main

  NOTE: git fetch is not sufficient.  You need to use git pull for this to work.

Checklist:

• renames master to main
  • branch dropdown defaults to main
  • master is not in the branch dropdown
• Settings → Branches
  • main is the default branch
  • branch rules were copied over to main
  • master branch is not in the branch dropdown under Default branch
  • master branch is not listed in the Branch protection rules area
• updates issues
  • changes reference to a sha in master to the same sha in main
  • changes links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.)
• updates PRs
  • updates 'commit into' branch to main for all PRs (NOTE:
  • updates links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.)
• wiki updated
  • updates links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.)
• local git repo
  • updates to local master tracking origin/master to local main tracking origin/main
  • updates branches based on origin/master to origin/main
  • updates branches based on local master to local main
  • in second repo, updates pin to master sha in the repo having the branch renamed
• working with Forks
  • TBD

Additional areas not tested

• automated builds and deployments that reference master branch
  • building images that aren't from tags but from branches
  • Jenkins
  • Ansible
• other tooling that references master branch
  • git aliases
  • local shell scripts
  • maintenance scripts for github API
  • git reflow or other 3rd party tools
• Integrations
  • Github hooks, coveralls, code climate, hound, circleci
  • mirroring with other sources (e.g. gitlab mirroring github)
  • notifications to tools (e.g. slack integration)
• documentation (eg. raw.github.com URLs)
  
  • wikis
  • READMEs
  • samvera.github.io
  • samvera.org
  • github pages for the project
  • Contributing
• references to master in code
  • Gemfile pins
  • To possible JSON documents in Github repos
• forks
  • Within "usual" contributors
  • Other "users"
    • In particular, Browse Everything has utility outside of Samvera's adopters

Case Study: samvera-circleci-orb:

https://github.com/samvera-labs/samvera-circleci-orb/issues/45

Ran:

github-default-branch --repo samvera-labs/samvera-circleci-orb --pat <token> --verbose --dry-run
github-default-branch --repo samvera-labs/samvera-circleci-orb --pat <token> --verbose

Checklist:

• renames master to main
  • branch dropdown defaults to main
  • master is not in the branch dropdown
• Settings → Branches
  • main is the default branch
  • branch rules were copied over to main
  • master branch is not in the branch dropdown under Default branch
  • master branch is not listed in the Branch protection rules area
• updates issues
  • changes reference to a sha in master to the same sha in main (N/A)
    
  • changes links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.) (See https://github.com/samvera-labs/samvera-circleci-orb/issues/29)
    
• updates PRs
  • updates 'commit into' branch to main for all PRs (NOTE:
  • updates links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.) (N/A)
• wiki updated
  • updates links to code in master branch to the same code in main (NOTE: Even though the link text and URL were not changed, GitHub forwards all 404 to the default branch which is main.) (N/A)
    
• local git repo (None as expected)
  
  • updates to local master tracking origin/master to local main tracking origin/main
  • updates branches based on origin/master to origin/main
  • updates branches based on local master to local main
  • in second repo, updates pin to master sha in the repo having the branch renamed
• working with Forks
  
  • TBD (One exists but no noticeable changes as expected)
    
• README and other documents (Untested - Already done in https://github.com/samvera-labs/samvera-circleci-orb/commit/dda15dde353dc8303382507ab5601757bd3651b8)
• Integrations:
  • CircleCI (Ran fine after rebasing a PR)

Locations text "master" still exists (mostly found via github search):

• Comments on PRs about repointing to main from tool running
• Links to code outside this repository
• Issues and PRs related to the renaming
• Closed PRs (not in github search)