Hi,
I'm trying to set up a project using git, and I'm having a hard time figuring out the best way to implement one of my workflows.
Lets say I have a repository "main". Some of my developers will have full access to this repository, while others should have access only to certain parts of it (and, no, unfortunately the files are scattered all over the place, and reorganizing isn't an option, so I can't use subtrees).
I've attempted to solve this project by cloning the project into another repository "limited". Now, half of my developers can work off from "main", while the other half can work from "limited". Incidentally, its okay that the original source is visible in limited, I just don't want the work we put into "main" to show up in "limited".
So, lets say my "main" developer makes some changes to the project. Some of his changes are to kept in "main" only, while other changes need to be pushed into "limited". I can maybe force developers to keep changes in common files in separate commits, and just cherry pick them into "limited". "Limited" developers can then pull those changes into his local repository, resolve conflicts, (rebase), and push them back into "limited". At some point later in time, lets suppose we need to push changes made in limited back to main. So, our main developers will cherry pick again the newest changes into limited (to keep the conflicts down). Limited developers will then commit/resolve/rebase their work into limited, and let the main developers know that they're ready. The main developers will now pull from limited -- and since we (likely) haven't changed main, the pull should be pretty conflict free (git does keep track of cherry-commits in merges, right?).
My question is, is cherry-picking really the best way to do this? What I'd really like to do is to create the limited repository by doing a filter-branch and removing secure files out of the repository entirely. After doing this, though, it makes it difficult/impossible to move changes between the two repositories. I tried a number of approaches, including trying to graft the two repositories together after the filter-branch to make push/pull work as simple merges/fast-forwards. I would have to figure out way to filter commits to make sure that main doesn't push a secure file into limited, and that limited doesn't try to do something silly like creating a secure file. Perhaps I could use filter-branch to rewrite these commits as well. But, being that filter-branch totally changes the commit ids, I figure that this approach really doesn't have any merit.
I also considered doing something like this:
# create main & limited from upstream source git clone upstream main git clone main limited
# remove secure files from limited cd limited git rm -r secure files git commit
# fake a merge to keep histories correct cd main git pull -s ours limited
# pulling from limited worked well, and would only get changes made after the rm cd main git pull limited master
# pull from main didn't work so well --> but I probably should be cherry-picking here anyway? cd limited git pull main master
I'm not sure why I'm trying so hard to avoid cherry-picking. Probably due to the fact that developers need to be more intimate with git, and that it takes considerably more time to look through a list of commits, and pick out the ones that can be moved from main -> limited.
Is there a way to generate a list of commits based on a list of files (paths aren't good enough, since my files are scattered all over the place) that can be found in main but not limited? Perhaps I can write a script that can be used to automate the cherry-picking from main -> limited. If we run this script right after we resolve all the conflicts from a limited -> main merge, we should be able to avoid all conflicts.
Anyway, I'm hoping for some thoughts/direction on how I may be able to solve my problem. Perhaps there is a magical solution that is plainly obvious to someone with more git experience?
Thanks, Tommy