Working with Tags and Releases

Scenario

Let's consider a scenario where you're working on a web application development project, and after months of hard work, your team has reached a major milestone: the first stable release of the application. To commemorate this achievement and make it easier for others to track this specific version, you decide to create a tag for the release.

Demonstrating how to create annotated tags to mark important points in the project history:

• Open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the root directory of your Git repository.

• Ensure that you are on the branch or commit that you want to tag. For example, if you want to tag the latest commit on the "master" branch, make sure you are on the "master" branch.

• Use the following command to create an annotated tag:

git tag -a v1.0 -m "First stable release"

In this command, "v1.0" is the tag name, and "-m" allows you to provide a message describing the tag.

• Verify that the tag was created successfully by running:

git tag

This command will list all the tags in your repository, and you should see "v1.0" listed.

• If you want to view detailed information about the tag, such as the commit it points to and the tag message, use the following command:

git show v1.0

This will display the commit information and the tag message associated with the "v1.0" tag.

Explaining the process of associating tags with releases for better project management:

Tags alone serve as milestones, but associating them with releases can enhance project management. Here's how you can achieve this:

• Create a release branch from the commit associated with the tag:

git checkout -b release/v1.0 v1.0

This command creates a new branch named "release/v1.0" based on the commit referenced by the "v1.0" tag.

• Switch to the release branch:

git checkout release/v1.0

• Perform any necessary modifications or bug fixes specific to the release. This branch should only contain changes related to the release and not new features.

• Once the necessary changes are made, merge the release branch into the main development branch (e.g., "master"):

git checkout master
git merge release/v1.0

This step incorporates the changes made in the release branch back into the main development branch.

• Finally, delete the release branch:

git branch -d release/v1.0

The release branch is no longer needed since its changes are now merged into the main branch.

Tags and releases in Git are powerful tools that enable you to mark significant points in your project's history and improve project management.