Dictator and Lieutenants Workflow

This is a variant of a multiple-repository workflow. It’s generally used by huge projects with hundreds of Collaborators; one famous example being the Linux kernel. Various Integration Managers are in charge of certain parts of the repository; they’re called Lieutenants. All the Lieutenants have one Integration Manager known as the Benevolent Dictator. The Benevolent Dictator pushes from his directory to a reference repository from which all the Collaborators need to pull. The process works like this:

1. Collaborators work on their topic branch and rebase their work on top of master. The master branch is that of the reference directory to which the Dictator pushes.
2. Lieutenants merge the Collaborators’ topic branches into their master branch.
3. The Dictator merges the Lieutenants’ master branches into the Dictator’s master branch.
4. Finally, the Dictator pushes that master branch to the reference repository so the other Collaborators can rebase on it.

This kind of workflow isn’t common, but can be useful in very big projects, or in highly hierarchical environments. It allows the project leader (the Dictator) to delegate much of the work and collect large subsets of code at multiple points before integrating them.

Further explanations as to how the Git Integration Manager Workflow actually works can be found on The Internet, for example, on git-scm.

Last modified on 2018-08-18