README.mdown

git-flow
========
A collection of Git extensions to provide high-level repository operations
for Vincent Driessen's [branching model](http://nvie.com/archives/323 "original
blog post").


> **IMPORTANT NOTE:**  
> In release 0.2, the order of the arguments has changed to provide a logical
> subcommand hierarchy.


Installing git-flow
-------------------
After downloading the sources from Github, also fetch the submodules:

	$ git submodule init
	$ git submodule update

Then, you can install `git-flow`, using:

	$ sudo make install

By default, this will look for the directory where Git is already installed,
and install the git-flow extension alongside the other Git subcommands. If git
is not on the system's `PATH`, it tries `/usr/libexec/git-core`. To explicitly
override this setting in case you have installed Git in another location, use:

	$ sudo make GIT_EXEC_PATH=/your/custom/path install

You rarely need to override this manually, the default 'make install' should do
fine.

Or simply point your `PATH` environment variable to your git-flow checkout
directory.


Please help out
---------------
This project is still under development. Feedback and suggestions are very
welcome and I encourage you to use the [Issues
list](http://github.com/nvie/gitflow/issues) on Github to provide that
feedback.

Feel free to fork this repo and to commit your additions.


Typical usage:
--------------

### Initialization

To initialize a new repo with the basic branch structure, use:
  
		git flow init
  
This will then interactively prompt you with some questions on which branches
you would like to use as development and production branches, and how you
would like your prefixes be named. You may simply press Return on any of
those questions to accept the (sane) default suggestions.


### Creating feature/release/hotfix/support branches

* To list/start/finish feature branches, use:
  
  		git flow feature
  		git flow feature start <name> [<base>]
  		git flow feature finish <name>
  
  For feature branches, the `<base>` arg must be a commit on `develop`.

* To list/start/finish release branches, use:
  
  		git flow release
  		git flow release start <release> [<base>]
  		git flow release finish <release>
  
  For release branches, the `<base>` arg must be a commit on `develop`.
  
* To list/start/finish hotfix branches, use:
  
  		git flow hotfix
  		git flow hotfix start <release> [<base>]
  		git flow hotfix finish <release>
  
  For hotfix branches, the `<base>` arg must be a commit on `master`.

* To list/start support branches, use:
  
  		git flow support
  		git flow support start <release> <base>
  
  For support branches, the `<base>` arg must be a commit on `master`.