Skara Workflow for Update releases

[Erik Helin]

On 10/23/20 6:02 PM, Langer, Christoph wrote:
> Hi Erik, Robin,

Hey Christoph,

thanks for reaching out!

> now that project Skara has hit mainline OpenJDK for quite a while, I’m 
> starting to think more closely about how the workflow for backports and 
> update releases will be.
> 
> I have lately recognized some activity in the Skara project to add 
> functionality for the backport scenario flying by. I also understand 
> that Yan and the folks maintaining 13u started using Skara already. I 
> have a few questions however.
> 
> 1. About the workflow for backports: I have seen that you’ve added the 
> option “git pr create --backport REV”. So I take that this would be the 
> canonical way to do a backport from an upstream change. Is there also 
> support for cherry-picking changes from upstream via pure git and 
> creating a PR from the backport, such that the Skara bots will recognize 
> that the patch proposed is a backport?

Yuri and the 13u people were kind enough to be the first JDK Updates to 
transition to Skara and they immediately found some issues. Fortunately 
we have now resolved almost all of them, I only have one or two left to fix.

> 2. What’s the workflow for merging between repositories? E.g. in 11u, we 
> have 2 repos, one is jdk11u, the other is jdk11u-dev. We’re currently 
> merging those repos once in a while in either direction. How is this 
> supported by Skara? I guess I can add both remotes to my local 
> repository and then merge branches and create PRs. However, what’ll 
> happen then? Will the skara bots accept merging these branches (without 
> squashing). What kind of checking will be in place? Can you please shed 
> some light on how you imagine that process.
> 
> I’m asking because I’d like to see Skara being used consistently, also 
> in JDK 11 Updates and I want to understand how far we’re away from that. ��

You are very close :) I've just started documenting the intended 
workflow for backports, I will have more to share closer to the end of 
this week.

Thanks!
Erik

> Thank you and best regards
> 
> Christoph
>