Repository Layout and Terminology

It is recommended to have the Debian packaging on a separate branch than the upstream source [1]. This is necessary to be able to import and merge in new upstream versions via gbp import-orig. To distinguish these two branches, the following terminology [2] is used:

• The debian-branch (the default branch name used in the Git repository is master) holds your current development work. That's the branch you usually cut your releases from and the default branch new upstream releases are merged onto.

• The upstream-branch (the default branch name used in the Git repository is upstream) holds the upstream releases. This can either be a branch you import to or a branch of an upstream repository you pull from.

• The pristine-tar branch (the default branch name used in the Git repository is pristine-tar) holds the necessary additional information to recreate the original tarball from the upstream-branch. In order to use this feature, you need to install the pristine-tar package.

• There can be one or more patch-queue branches. Every patch-queue branch is related to a debian-branch. If the debian-branch is called master, the corresponding patch-queue branch is called patch-queue/master. The patch-queue branch is the Debian branch plus the contents of debian/patches applied. These branches are managed with gbp pq.

You're completely free to pick any repository layout; the branch names above are only gbp's defaults. They can be changed at any point in time, and you can work with an arbitrary number of branches. For example, branches like nmu, backports or stable might (temporarily or permanently) become your debian-branch, and branches like dfsg or snapshots might become your upstream-branch—it doesn't matter if these branches are maintained with gbp import-orig or not.

A recommended branch layout is described in the Section called Branch layout in the Chapter called Importing Sources>.

Since gbp buildpackage only works with local Git-repositories, you have to use git push in order to publish your changes to remote repositories like git.debian.org; this can also be automatized with gbp buildpackage's post-tag hook.

Workflow

A typical, simple workflow consists of the following steps:

1. Import a new Debian package via gbp import-dsc. This imports the Debian Package on the debian-branch and the upstream sources on the upstream-branch.

2. Develop, test, commit changes. During this time, you can always build the package with gbp buildpackage. In case you have uncommitted changes in your source tree, you can use the --git-ignore-new option.

3. Optionally you can create the Debian changelog entries using gbp dch and create snapshot releases for testing using its --snapshot option.

4. Once satisfied, you can build the final package with gbp buildpackage --git-tag. This additionally creates a tag within Git so you can switch back to that version later at any time. The format of the tags can be specified; tags can be GPG signed.

5. When a new upstream version is released and upstream isn't using Git, you can import the new version via gbp import-orig onto the upstream-branch. gbp import-orig will by default try to merge the new upstream version onto the debian-branch. You can skip the merge with --no-merge. After resolving any potential conflicts, go back to the second step.

These steps will be explained in more details in the following sections.