Memory hook: Trace a business change from work item to commit, test, artifact and release.
Must remember
- Choose trunk-based development, short feature branches or release branches according to release needs and team discipline. Long-lived branches increase divergence. Pull-request policies can require review, build validation, resolved conversations and protected merge rules.
- A merge preserves branch integration history; rebase rewrites commit ancestry; squash produces a combined change.
revertrecords an inverse commit;resetmoves a local reference and can discard work depending on mode. Prefer shared-history-safe recovery when others already depend on commits. - Tags identify releases but can be moved unless protected. Git LFS stores large assets outside ordinary Git objects; repository scaling tools such as Scalar address large-repo workflows. Avoid committing generated archives, secrets or dependency caches by default.
- Removing a secret from the latest file does not remove it from history or revoke it. Rotate/revoke first, then perform coordinated history cleanup where needed and inspect downstream artifacts/caches.
- Azure Boards/GitHub Issues and Projects organise work; link changes to bugs, tests and deployments. Wikis, Markdown, Mermaid, API documentation and generated release notes improve review and handover. Webhooks/Teams integrations need scoped credentials, validated events and noise control.
- Track lead time, cycle time, deployment frequency, failure rate and recovery time. Distinguish work-in-progress bottlenecks from individual output metrics. Feedback should lead to a testable improvement, not just a larger dashboard.
Choose under exam pressure
| Requirement | Choice and reason |
|---|---|
| Undo a published change without rewriting shared history | Revert with a reviewed corrective commit. |
| Prevent unreviewed production changes | Protected branch/PR rules and deployment controls. |
| Large binary assets repeatedly bloat clones | Evaluate Git LFS and appropriate artifact storage. |
Traps
- A tag is not immutable unless protected.
- Deleting a file does not revoke a leaked credential.
- High deployment frequency alone does not prove reliability.
Active recall
1. Why keep feature branches short-lived?
To reduce divergence and integration risk.
2. What distinguishes revert from reset?
Revert adds an inverse change; reset moves a reference and can rewrite/discard local history.
3. What is the first response to a committed live secret?
Revoke/rotate it and assess use, then address history and artifacts.
4. Why link work items to releases?
For impact traceability, audit and feedback about delivered outcomes.
5. What does cycle time measure?
Time for work to move through a defined workflow interval; define the start/end consistently.