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+# Branching Strategy for releases
+
+## General Considerations
+
+- Generally the master branch is the one where current development is happening.
+- For the sake of simplicity, one objective would be to minimize the number of long-lived branches, for example branches dedicated to maintenance releases.
+ 
+
+## Release numbering
+- example 4.3.0
+- The first number (4 in this example) is incremented for major changes in the software. 
+  - A major change impacts the rules, either errors or warnings OR includes breaking changes for users.
+- The second number (3 in this example) is incremented for minor changes in the software.
+  - A minor change is non-breaking for users, and doesn't impact validation rules.
+- The third number (0 in this example) is used for maintenance releases.
+  - A maintenance is created if some bug has to be corrected before the next scheduled release.
+    - As an example see [#1663](https://github.com/MobilityData/gtfs-validator/pull/1653) in the gtfs-validator repository.
+  
+![](BranchingDiagram.png)
+
+## Feature/fix branches
+
+- Feature/fix branch are created for every feature we want to add to the software (or bug we want to fix).
+- They stem from master, are usually short-lived and are merged back to master.
+
+## Maintenance/release branches
+- In general we will try not to create long-lived release branches.
+- A long-lived release branch will be created only if any merge to master that came after the previous release is deemed not suitable to go in the maintenance release.
+- For example the change could be too extensive, or introduce an undue risk in the maintenance release. 
+  - This is true in particular if the testing infrastructure is not sufficient, meaning it's more difficult to know if a change is safe.
+
+## Hotfixes
+- We should strive to not do hotfixes, but sometimes it's inevitable.
+- A hotfix will generally result in a maintenance release.
+- Hotfixes branches are similar to feature branches, but we should consider using the prefix `hotfix:` for such issues and PRs.
+- Where does the hotfix branch stem from:
+    - Generally from the commit that was tagged for the latest release.
+        - See for example commit A in the diagram.
+    - In keeping with the **Minimize Branching** objective, we will allow the hotfix branch to stem from a commit
+      downstream of the previous release commit if:
+        - we consider that all merges coming from feature branches that happened after the previous release can go in the maintenance release.
+            - For example if commit C from the diagram contains minor changes like typos we could decide that it's OK to include it in the maintenance release.
+            - In that case the hotfix branch can stem from commit C and be merged back into master in commit F.
+            - Commit F is tagged as the maintenance release and the maintenance release is built from there.
+    - If a merge on the master branch cannot be included in the maintenance release (See for example commit I) then we have no choice but to create a maintenance branch
+        - Create a maintenance branch stemming from the last commit of master that can go in the maintenance release. Commit F in our example.
+          - This branch becomes a long-lived branch that can be used for further maintenance releases and should be protected from deletion.
+          - This branch should require pull request to add commits to it.
+        - After that, master cannot be merged into the maintenance branch, since it would introduce undesirable commits.
+        - Also create a hotfix branch stemming from the same commit (commit F in our example)
+        - Once fixed, merge the hotfix branch into the maintenance branch. This creates commit K, that should be tagged and used for the maintenance release.
+        - Also merge the maintenance branch into master.
+            - Do not delete the maintenance branch. It can be used for further maintenance releases.
+            - Merging into master creates commit L in the diagram. Note that at this point there could be conflicts so it becomes important to merge carefully.
+ 
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