Breaking Changes

This document describes QMK's Breaking Change process. A Breaking Change is any change which modifies how QMK behaves in a way that in incompatible or potentially dangerous. We limit these changes so that users can have confidence that updating their QMK tree will not break their keymaps.

The breaking change period is when we will merge PR's that change QMK in dangerous or unexpected ways. There is a built-in period of testing so we are confident that any problems caused are rare or unable to be predicted.

What has been included in past Breaking Changes?

When is the next Breaking Change?

The next Breaking Change is scheduled for November 28, 2020.

Important Dates

2020 Aug 29 - develop is created. It will be rebased weekly.
2020 Oct 31 - develop closed to new PR's.
2020 Oct 31 - Call for testers.
2020 Nov 26 - master is locked, no PR's merged.
2020 Nov 28 - Merge develop to master.
2020 Nov 28 - master is unlocked. PR's can be merged again.

What changes will be included?

To see a list of breaking change candidates you can look at the breaking_change label. New changes might be added between now and when develop is closed, and a PR with that label applied is not guaranteed to be merged.

If you want your breaking change to be included in this round you need to create a PR with the breaking_change label and have it accepted before develop closes. After develop closes no new breaking changes will be accepted.

Criteria for acceptance:

PR is complete and ready to merge
PR has a ChangeLog

Checklists

This section documents various processes we use when running the Breaking Changes process.

Rebase `develop` from `master`

This is run every Friday while develop is open.

Process:

cd qmk_firmware
git checkout master
git pull --ff-only
git checkout develop
git rebase master
git push --force

Creating the `develop` branch

This happens immediately after the previous develop branch is merged.

qmk_firmware git commands
- git checkout master
- git pull --ff-only
- git checkout -b develop
- Edit readme.md
  - Add a big notice at the top that this is a testing branch.
  - Include a link to this document
- git commit -m 'Branch point for <DATE> Breaking Change'
- git tag breakpoint_<YYYY>_<MM>_<DD>
- git tag <next_version> # Prevent the breakpoint tag from confusing version incrementing
- git push origin develop
- git push --tags

4 Weeks Before Merge

develop is now closed to new PR's, only fixes for current PR's may be merged
Post call for testers
- Discord
- GitHub PR
- https://reddit.com/r/olkb

1 Week Before Merge

Announce that master will be closed from <2 Days Before> to
- Discord
- GitHub PR
- https://reddit.com/r/olkb

2 Days Before Merge

Announce that master is closed for 2 days
- Discord
- GitHub PR
- https://reddit.com/r/olkb

Day Of Merge

qmk_firmware git commands
- git checkout develop
- git pull --ff-only
- git rebase origin/master
- Edit readme.md
  - Remove the notes about develop
- Roll up the ChangeLog into one file.
- git commit -m 'Merge point for <DATE> Breaking Change'
- git push origin develop
GitHub Actions
- Create a PR for develop
- Make sure travis comes back clean
- Merge develop PR

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