R&D on GitHub Branch Protection and Team Permissions

About the Repository

Welcome to the rnd-codeowners repository. The primary goal of this repository is to research and test various configurations related to GitHub branch protection rules, team permissions, and the usage (or non-usage) of the CODEOWNERS file in a collaborative development environment.

Intention

• Experimentation: This repository serves as a testing ground to understand how different branch protection strategies and permission settings affect the development workflow in GitHub.
• Learning & Documentation: Through practical application, we aim to document the effects of various settings, particularly focusing on how they impact pull requests, code reviews, and the CI/CD pipeline setup using GitHub Actions.

Key Focus Areas

• Branch Protection Rules: Investigating how different protection rules can be applied to branches like main, integration, development/*, and feature/*.
• Team Roles & Permissions: Understanding the impact of different permission levels assigned to teams like pbp-developer, pbp-maintainer, global-owner, pbp-cicd-pipeline, and pbp-readonly.
• Pull Request Management: Testing the pull request flow, especially who can open, review, and merge pull requests under various scenarios.
• CI/CD Integration: Examining how GitHub Actions work with protected branches and permission-limited pull requests.
• CODEOWNERS Use Cases: Exploring scenarios both with and without the CODEOWNERS file to determine its impact on repository management.

Expected Behavior

• Pull Requests to integration: Can be created by anyone but can only be merged by members of pbp-maintainer or global-owner.
• Pull Requests from main to main: Can only be merged by pbp-cicd-pipeline or global-owner.
• Developer Restrictions: Members of pbp-developer can create branches and open pull requests but cannot merge them into integration or main.
• CI/CD Pipeline Restrictions: Automated workflows should not progress to release or deployment stages without appropriate approvals.
• Contribution & Review: All contributions are subject to review, aligning with the defined branch protection rules.

Contributing

Contributors are encouraged to experiment with different settings and scenarios. Please document your findings and experiences in the issues or pull requests to enhance our collective understanding.

Feedback and Questions

For any feedback or questions, feel free to open an issue in this repository. Your input is valuable in shaping the outcomes of this research.