Git branching developer document

[julesghub]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Feature request for a git branching strategy for underworld3

Describe the solution you'd like
Written documentation, .md file, describing the git branching strategy used for Underworld3. This is for developers of Underworld3 and should include ASCII art to demonstrate common use cases.
Also naming standards for creating a new branch should be provided and example git commands for modifying a branch, merging into a branch and other common git branch issues.

Additional context
The version control section in this document is an example so what I'd like https://github.com/underworldcode/underworld2/blob/v2.17.x/docs/development/release_guidelines.md

Here is another document that discusses a nice git branching strategy. https://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/. @lmoresi I like this strategy - it's what uw2 uses from memory.

[lmoresi]

Hi Julian,

We now have a branching strategy document at docs/developer/guides/branching-strategy.md that covers what you're asking for — ASCII branch diagrams, naming conventions (feature/, bugfix/, docs/), common git commands, and the worktree workflow for isolated work.

Our strategy is essentially a simplified git-flow:

Git-flow	Underworld3	Notes
main	main	Stable tagged releases
develop	development	Integration branch, must always build
feature/*	feature/*	Same
hotfix/*	bugfix/*	We cherry-pick from development to main rather than branching from main
release/*	(not used)	We tag release candidates directly on development (v3.X.0rc1)

The one simplification we made over classic git-flow is dropping release/* branches — release candidates are just tags on development, and setuptools-scm handles versioning from the tags.

Question for you: do you think a dedicated release/* branch would be useful? The argument for it would be a stabilisation period where development can keep receiving new work while the release is polished. With a small team it hasn't felt necessary, but you've been through this with UW2 — would appreciate your view.

— Louis