When should a build task be triggered while using GitFlow?

Question

Hi, I'm using SourceTree 2 and Bamboo 6 (hosted on Windows) when working on C++/C# game projects using Visual Studio 2017.

This can be a matter of preferences. However, I wanted to know how other use Bamboo when using GitFlow.

After the features and others are prepared, I merge it to the master branch.

I have configured that Bamboo only builds when there is a commit on the master branch. I haven't prepared a release for the game projects, yet.

As a result, I felt that I'm not using Bamboo to the fullest.

So I was thinking when should I trigger a build.

When do others configure their Bamboo build plans while working on game development using GitFlow?

-Best regards

Jonathan Gray · Answer

It depends.  How much build time can you afford?  What tasks are part of your build process.  An idle CPU is a wasted CPU and a high queue time is worse than a wasted CPU.

In our case, we build automatically on all non-feature branches so we can detect failure earlier in our unit tests and static analysis.  For feature branches we leave it up to developers to run them or not manually.  Our static analysis task takes long enough that we can't afford to run it with every build, so we have it set as a dependent child plan so that it runs as long as there are no other builds for the same branch queued.

Young Kwang Kim · Answer

Hello, Cristiano!

I had some headache for configuring Bamboo.

How your answer has healed me!

"We usually setup bamboo to create build branches automatically for every branch created in the bitbucket repository."

Wow, every branch.

I will keep that in mind.

Thanks for your tip!

-Best Regards

Cristiano Mariano · Answer

Hi Young! How are you doing?

We usually setup bamboo to create build branches automatically for every branch created in the bitbucket repository.

When developers push changes to their branches, bamboo builds the branch and, only then, they are allowed to merge pull request to other branches in the flow.

We like this approach because when developers push something that breakes build, the break only the build of their branch and main branches remain untouched.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Cristiano