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Deploy to major orgs

Deploy to major orgs

Minor and major branches

Minor branches are the individual git branches of the User Stories. They do not have an associated CI/CD org.

Major branches are the git branches that have an associated CI/CD org: each new commit in a major branch automatically triggers a deployment to that org.

Release flow from minor branches to major branches and their orgs

Examples:

  • Minor to major: when a Pull Request (Merge Request on GitLab) from feature/crm-123 to integration (A) is validated and merged, a new state (commit) is detected in branch integration, so the CI server automatically deploys to the Integration org (B)
  • Major to major: when a Pull Request from integration to uat (C) is validated and merged, a new state (commit) is detected in branch uat, so the CI server automatically deploys to the UAT org (D)
  • Major to major: when a Pull Request from uat to preprod (E) is validated and merged, a new state (commit) is detected in branch preprod, so the CI server automatically deploys to the Preprod org (F)
  • Major to major: when a Pull Request from preprod to main (G) is validated and merged, a new state (commit) is detected in branch main, so the CI server automatically deploys to the Production org (H)

Pull Requests between major branches

A Pull Request between two major branches promotes everything that has been merged into the source branch since its last promotion: all the User Stories, their tickets and their deployment actions.

In the DevOps Pipeline panel of the VS Code SFDX Hardis extension, click a major branch to see what it contains: the merged Pull Requests, the related tickets and the deployment actions, with Preview Release Notes and Generate Release Notes buttons.

Pull Requests merged in a major branch, seen from the DevOps Pipeline

  • Create a new Pull Request from the source major branch to the target major branch
    • Set a meaningful title, like MAJOR: uat to preprod or MAJOR: preprod to production
    • Make sure that Delete source branch after merge and Squash commits are UNCHECKED
  • Submit the Pull Request
  • The control jobs start automatically. They should pass, as the Pull Requests from the minor branches already passed them
    • If a job fails, you usually need to perform manual actions in the target org, like activating a feature, or renaming elements when metadata API names have been renamed (a bad practice, but it happens)
  • Check the deployment actions carried by the promotion: automated actions run by themselves at deployment time, and the manual steps still to perform are listed as checkboxes in the Pull Request comments
  • Once all jobs succeed, merge the Pull Request
    • The merge automatically triggers the deployment to the associated Salesforce org
  • If your project publishes Release Notes, generate them from the major branch window of the DevOps Pipeline

For urgent fixes that cannot wait for the next promotion, see Hotfixes, then Retrofit.

Learn by doing

The free Salesforce DevOps with sfdx-hardis course does this, click by click, on an org of your own, in these labs:

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