Branch policies in SourceCraft

Branch policies are rules and restrictions that apply to specific branches and tags in a repository. With policies, you can manage changes, implement code reviews, enforce proper naming and conditions for creating branches and tags, and protect branches from accidental commits or direct pushes.

For example, you can set up a policy so that only reviewed and approved changes are pushed to the main branch. This helps to maintain code stability and quality, make the development process more transparent, and prevent errors.

You specify the policy configuration for a particular repository and store it in the .sourcecraft/branches.yaml file. A configuration stored in the main branch, e.g., master or main, applies to the entire repository. You can also set the configuration at the SourceCraft organization level.

The general policy configuration format in .sourcecraft/branches.yaml is as follows:

branch_protection:
  policies:
    - target: <protected_resource_type>
      matches: "<filter>"
      message: "<message_to_user_on_trigger>"
      rules:
        - <rule_1>
        - <rule_2>

Where:

• target: Protected resource type. This is a required setting. The possible values are:

  • default_branch: Main branch, such as master or main.
  • branch: Branch.
  • tag: Tag.

• matches: Filter or list of filters by protected resource name. This is a required parameter for target: branch and target: tag.

• message: Message the user will get when the policy is triggered. This is a required setting.

• rules: Rule or list of rules to apply to the protected resource. This is a required setting. The possible values are:

  • prevent_force_push: Prevent rewriting the branch commit history (force push operations).

  • prevent_non_pr_changes: Prevent direct edits to the branch (push operations); edits must be submitted through a pull request.

  • prevent_all_changes: Prevent any actions with the branch or tag.

    Warning

    The prevent_all_changes rule is deprecated. Instead, use the prevent_creation and prevent_update rules together.

  • prevent_deletion: Prevent deletion of a branch or tag.

  • prevent_creation: Prevent creating a branch or tag.

  • prevent_update: Prevent branch or tag updates after creation (prohibits push, force push, delete, and merge operations via a pull request).

For more information, see Setting up a branch policy in a SourceCraft repository.

For more information, see Enabling branch policy bypass for repository administrator.

Configuration example

branch_protection:
  policies:
    ## Preventing commit history rewrites, edits without 
    ## a pull request, and deletion of the main branch
    - target: default_branch
      message: "Direct push into main branch is forbidden, create PR first"
      rules:
        - prevent_force_push
        - prevent_non_pr_changes
        - prevent_deletion

    ## Preventing the creation of branches with names that match filters
    - target: branch
      matches: ["**", "!OO-**/**", "!hotfix/**", "!chore/**", "!release/**"]
      message: "Please use proper branch naming"
      rules:
        - prevent_creation

    ## Preventing the creation of tags with names that match filters
    - target: tag
      matches: "gitcore-**"
      message: "Manual tag creation is forbidden, please use Releaser"
      rules:
        - prevent_creation

See also the branch policy example in the test-serverless-cube SourceCraft repository.

Automatic branch deletion post-merge

In the .sourcecraft/branches.yaml file, you can configure rules to automatically clean up source branches once a pull request is merged into the target branch. This helps maintain a clean repository and prevents the accumulation of stale branches.

Rules are defined in the pull_request.branch_cleanup.matches section using path filters. For example:

pull_request:
  branch_cleanup:
    matches: ["**", "!hotfix/**", "!chore/**", "!release/**"]

In this example, automatic deletion is enabled for all branches except hotfix/**, chore/**, and release/**.

The configuration in .sourcecraft/branches.yaml defines the default behavior at the repository level. However, you can override this setting for an individual pull request using the Delete source branch when merged option under Merge settings. For more information, see Working with pull requests in SourceCraft.

Branch policy schema in JSON format

"branch_protection_policy": {
  "type": "object",
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "properties": {
    "target": {
      "title": "Policy Target",
      "description": "Type of target this policy is applied to",
      "type": "string",
      "enum": [
        "default_branch",
        "branch",
        "tag"
      ]
    },
    "message": {
      "title": "Error message",
      "description": "Custom message that will be displayed if policy is violated",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "rules": {
      "title": "Rules",
      "description": "Set of rules. The 'prevent_all_changes' value is deprecated; use 'prevent_creation' together with 'prevent_update' instead.",
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "string",
        "enum": [
          "prevent_force_push",
          "prevent_non_pr_changes",
          "prevent_all_changes",
          "prevent_deletion",
          "prevent_creation",
          "prevent_update"
        ]
      }
    },
    "matches": {
      "title": "Glob Match",
      "description": "For tag and branch target, pattern matcher. See globstar patterns for the details",
      "oneOf": [
        {
          "type": "string"
        },
        {
          "type": "array",
          "items": {
            "type": "string"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "target",
    "message",
    "rules"
  ]
}

Useful links

• Setting up a branch policy in a SourceCraft repository
• Approval rules in SourceCraft
• Continuous integration and continuous deployment in SourceCraft
• Configuring CI/CD in a SourceCraft repository