# Branching and Code Review Process

This document outlines the guidelines and expectations for effective code branching, review, and merging within a regulated Azure DevOps environment. Emphasis is placed on the four-eyes principle and traceability of changes.

![Branching and Code Review Process.](resources/diagrams/branching-code-review-process.png "Branching and Code Review Process.")

## Traceability

- Utilize Azure Boards for work item tracking, linking commits and PRs to their respective items.
- Enforce policies in Azure Repos to require reviews, approvals, optionally linked work items for merges.
- Use annotations in your code for significant changes, providing explanations and linking back to documentation or specs.

## Create a Branch

- Create branches under subfolders aligned with their purpose (`new`, `update`, `fix`, `delete`) following the semantic versioning linked with release notes documentation.
- Use descriptive branch names that reflect the feature or fix.

## Apply Changes

- Commit changes regularly with clear, concise messages that follow semantic versioning.
- Include work item or issue numbers in commit messages for traceability.

## Manual Testing

- Perform local linting to ensure code quality.
- Preview changes locally, especially for UI-related updates.
- Run unit tests and ensure they pass before pushing code.

## Create a Pull Request

- Rebase your branch on the latest main branch to simplify the review process and prevent conflicts.
- Ensure your PR description is detailed, linking back to any related work items or issues for context.
- Tag relevant team members for review and set a deadline if necessary.

## Automated Testing

- Optional part, automated tests can be defined within a pipeline that is triggered automnatcally when a Pull Request is created.
- Ensure all automated tests pass, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
- Check for code coverage and ensure it meets the project's standards.

## Review a Pull Request

- Focus on maintainability, readability, and scalability of the code.
- Ensure new code adheres to project standards and integrates well with existing codebase.
- Provide constructive feedback, highlighting both strengths and areas for improvement.

## Merge a Pull Request

- Ensure all PR checks pass (build, test pipelines, and any additional checks your team requires).
- Only merge after at least one other team member has approved the changes.
- Upon merging, the main branch triggers a CI/CD pipeline to deploy changes to a staging environment for further testing.

## Post-Merge

- Delete the feature branch to keep the repository clean and manageable.
- Update any project tracking tools to reflect the completion of tasks.
- Review deployment results and ensure no issues in the staging environment before promoting to production.