Would branching model merge any branches without the automatic merging being enabled ?

Question

We have a commit that have made it to "prod"  branch with no trace of a merge commit to "prod" (and among with other branches), directly or indirectly (through other branches first).

Branching model is enabled by default to maintain naming conventions but auto marge isn't.

Unfortunately this has happened more than once.

Any ideas ? could branch modeling be merging commits ?

Branching model configuration:

Please note that in the branch modeling configurations "prod" branch isn't selected and development branch is a deprecated branch that is no longer used.

Tracing the merge commit:

We searched the entire prod commit log using the tortoise GUI and tried this

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8475448/find-merge-commit-which-include-a-specific-commit

Edit: no branch permissions, only repository permissions used.

mhosafy · Answer

I'll do that and monitor for a while.

Thanks a lot for your time help !

Mikael Sandberg · Answer

Okay, so my guess it that someone may have done a reset on their local prod branch to the merge commit from dev_a to dev_b, and then pushed that up.

Without enabling branch permissions or add git hooks you will not be able to prevent this from happening. I would recommend to use branch permissions and and enable at least enable Prevent deletion, Prevent rewriting history and Prevent changes without pull request.

mhosafy · Answer

But point taken, it certainly needs to be enforced but is there is no other way ?

The commit is a merge commit, a commit resulting from merging branch dev_a into dev_b it can't have been on prod, must be a commit on branch dev_b right ? then it follows that there should be branch merge into prod, either dev_b itself or a branch it was merged into.

I traced all dev_b merges and none is to a branch that ended up merged to prod.