Project workflows

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Table of contents

Create a new project

To create a new project, use theproject.createcommand at the root of your codebase.

.> project.create myProject

This will create a new, empty project with the name,myProjectwith amainbranch inside of it as a default. Your console will look something like this:

myProject/main>
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Fun fact: theproject.createcommand optionally accepts zero arguments, in which case the UCM will create a random project name for you!

See also:

Create a project from an existing library with releases

If your existing namespace is a mature library withmain,latest,andreleasesnamespaces, you'll will...

  1. merge themainsubnamespace into themainbranch of the project
  2. Create a branch called/latestwith thebranchcommand and merge thelatestnamespace into it
  3. Each release is a branch with the special form/releases/releaseVersion.Each of the released version namespaces are merged into their respective branches.

Create a project from an existing namespace

Say you have simple un-versioned namespace that you want to turn into a project. First, create a new project with theproject.createcommand.

.> project.create myProject

Then, merge the namespace into the project with themergecommand.

myProject/main> merge .myExternalNamespace
You cannotforka namespace from outside of a project into a project. You must use themergecommand.

See also:

List all projects in your codebase

To list all projects in your codebase, use theprojectscommand.

.> projects

Renaming a project

To rename a project, use therename.projectcommand from within the project you're trying to rename.

myProject/main> rename.project myNewProject
myNewProject/main>

Renaming a branch

Renaming a branch follows the same pattern

myProject/feature1> rename.branch myNewBranch
myProject/myNewBranch>

Switch between branches or projects

Theswitchcommand is used to change between branches or projects.

Both of these commands will switch to the defaultmainbranch of theotherProject.The absence of a slash preceding the argument toswitchmeans that the UCM will look for aprojectto switch to.

myProject/aBranch> switch otherProject
myProject/aBranch> switch otherProject/main

Switching to a contributor branch of another project contains the contributor's Unison Share handle in the branch name.

myProject/aBranch> switch otherProject/@contributor/contributorsWork

To switch to a branch within thesameproject, omit the project name, leaving slash and the branch name to indicate that the argument is a branch. The slash can help distinguish a branch name from a project name when there is a project with the same name as a branch.

myProject/aBranch> switch /anotherBranch
myProject/aBranch> switch anotherBranch

Create branches

To create a new branch, use thebranchcommand with one or two arguments. You might create branches to work on a new feature in one of your own projects, or to contribute to a project that you've cloned. Branches have a parent-child relationship, so the new branch will be a child of the current branch.

Branch arguments are optionally preceded by a slash to disambiguate them from other codebase entities. This creates a copy of themainbranch inaNewBranchand switches to it.

myProject/main> branch /aNewBranch

You might also see branch arguments prefixed by the contributor's Unison Share handle.

myProject/main> branch /@contributor/aNewBranch

You cannot otherwise have multiple slashes in a branch name.

myProject/main> branch /myNewBranch
@unison/base/main> branch /myNewFeature

It is also possible to create a branch with two arguments. The first is the source, or parent branch, and the second is the new branch being created.

myProject/main> branch /srcBranch /destBranch

List the local branches of a project

To view the branches of a project, use thebranchescommand.

myProject/main> branches

This shows the local branches and theirremote mappings(if any) on Unison Share.

Currently you cannot view the remote cloned instances of your project.

Delete a project or a branch

To delete a project use thedelete.projectcommand. This will delete the project from your local codebase.

myProject/main> delete.project myProject
.>

Deleting a branch can be done with thedelete.branchcommand. This will delete the branch from your local codebase.

myProject/main> delete.branch /myBranch

Deleting a project from Unison Share

You can delete a project fromUnison Shareby heading to your project's settings page.

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Deleting a project from Unison Share cannot be reversed.

Pull a project or branch from Unison Share as a library

pullis used to include a project in your local codebase for use as alibrary.If you want to contribute to a project, or merge another contributors' branch into your project, usecloneinstead. For the time being, you'll still usepullfor projects you want to put in yourlibdirectory.

.> pull @unison/base/latest lib.base

Clone a project from Unison Share

Cloning is used to download a project or branch for contributing to it. (To install a project dependency, use thepullcommand.) Unlike with Git workflows, where you clone a project and can download all the project's branches (stale or otherwise,) in Unison you clone specific branches of a project.

To clone a project from Unison Share, use theclonecommand. The first path segment is the user's Unison Share handle and the second is the name of the project.

.> clone @unison/projectName

Unless otherwise specified, the cloned project will only include themainbranch.

Clone a branch of a project from Unison Share

If you want to clone a branch other thanmain,use the sameclonecommand but include the branch name after the project name.

.> clone @unison/projectName/branch

If you already have the project locally, but wish to clone an additional branch from the remote repository, you can leave off the project name prefix.

@unison/base/main> clone /releases/2.0.0

Branches may also include a path segment for the contributor's Unison Share handle, indicating that the branch is acontributor branch.

.> clone @unison/projectName/@contributor/branch
Cloning is for contributing to a project. If you want to use a project as a dependency, seepulling a project

Push a project or branch to Unison Share

To push a project or branch to Unison Share, use thepushcommand.

Pushing a project to Unison Share automatically establishes a remote mapping between your local project and the project on Unison Share. We can even runpushwith no arguments on a project that we own.

myProject/main> push

Pushing to https://share.unison-lang.org/@myuser/myproj/branches/main...

You can also push a specific branch to Unison Share. The following command will pushsomeOtherBranchto themainbranch of the project.

myProject/main> push @myUser/myProject/main /someOtherBranch

You can stillpusha namespace to yourpublicnamespace in Unison Share, but if you push a project to Unison Share, it will get special UI treatment and functionality, like branch based browsing and versioning.

Merges for projects

Themergecommand is used to combine branch contents or namespace contents. You mightmergea namespace into a branch as a part of moving your code into a project, or you mightmergetwo branches together as part of a pull request. The existing ability tomergetwo namespaces together is still supported as well. Let's look at each of these cases.

Preview a merge

Before performing a large merge you may want to view the terms that will be changed with themerge.previewcommand

myProject/main> merge.preview /featureBranch
myProject/main> merge.preview /featureBranch /otherBranch

This will produce a list of terms that will be changed. You can view this list in the UCM or in the browser.

Merging two branches together

To merge two branches together, your arguments can be prefixed with a slash,/indicating that they are branches.

myProject/main> merge /featureBranch
myProject/main> merge /featureBranch /featureBranch2

If you're reviewing a pull request, the contributor will have created a branch for their work. Their branch will start with their user handle from Unison Share.

myProject/main> merge /@contributor/featureBranch
myProject/main> merge /@contributor/featureBranch /featureBranch2

You can also merge a different project's branch into your project's current branch by supplying the full project name as an argument.

myProject/main> merge @unison/differentProject/featureBranch

Merging a namespace into a branch

From within the project, you can merge a fully qualified namespace into the current branch, by calling merge with one argument, or specify a target branch with the optional second argument tomerge.

myProject/main> merge .feature.from.namespace
myProject/main> merge .feature.from.namespace /featureBranch

Publishing a release of a project

Releases are like immutable snapshots of a given branch. They do not contain the history of the project so other libraries can depend upon them without using additional space in their codebase.

There are two ways to create a release of a project, the recommended option is to use the Unison Share UI to create a release, and the other is using therelease.draftcommand.

Creating a release from the Unison Share UI

If you are intending to create a release using only the Unison Share UI and you'd like to associate release notes with the new version, make sure yourReleaseNotesdocument term is up to date with the latest changes to your library. Pushmainup to Unison Share and head to the "releases" tab for the project.

Image of the releases page with a "cut a release" button at the top.

Click the "Cut a release" button to open the release version modal.

You'll have some options for how to version the next release. Increment your release by one major, minor, or patch version.

Image of the release version modal.

Hit publish and Unison Share will create a new release for you! The release process will squash the unneeded codebase history when it creates the release, so users of your library will have a compact version to depend on.

Creating a release draft in the UCM

You can create a release from any branch of a project, but it's common to create a release from themainbranch in the UCM. To start a release, use therelease.draftcommand and enter the version number of the release you want to create.

myProject/main> release.draft 1.0.0

This will create a new branch called/releases/drafts/1.0.0.

You may want toadda Doc term called "ReleaseNotes" to this branch at this point to describe the changes in this version. Upon publication, if Unison Share finds a term called "ReleaseNotes" in a release branch, it will display the notes for others to benefit from.

ReleaseNotes = {{

  * Added function {List.map}
  * Updated function {List.filter}
  ...

}}

After you're done adding the release notes,pushthe branch to Unison Share and head to the project url given in the console.

myProject/releases/drafts/1.0.0> push

The "releases" tab for the project has a special section for "draft" releases at the top if a branch matching the release draft naming conventions is found. Click publish for the release draft in question to open up a modal for confirming the desired version. Otherwise you can use the "cut a release" button found in the "releases" page to make a release at any time.

Image of the releases page with a draft release at the top.

Unison Share supports semantic versioning for releases, so pick one of the options given in the modal.

Image of the release version modal.

When you're ready, hit "Publish" and Unison Share will add your new version to the list of releases for a project.

How to update a library dependency

Upgrading a library is very similar to the regular process of updating Unison code. It involves one additional simple command. The following workflow uses Unison's standard library,base,as an example.

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Upgrade workflow:

    • pullthe latest version of the dependency into your codebase so that it is a sibling of your current library version.
      • myProject/main> pull @unison/base/releases/2.0.0 lib.base_2_0_0
    • Run theupgradecommand, indicating which library you'd like to upgrade
      • myProject/main> upgrade base_1_0_0 base_2_0_0
  3. If there are conflicts to resolve, the UCM will open up the affected terms in your editor. Resolve the conflicts and enterupdateagain once the file typechecks.

In rare cases, the Unison project that you're depending upon may be located in a user'spublicnamespace, and therefore predates the project ecosystem. In that case, you can usethis process for upgrading.

Reviewing a PR

Once a contributor has created acontributor branchand pushed it to Unison Share, their contribution will show up in the project's Unison Share contributions page.

Image of the contributions page with a "submit contributions" button at the top.

Click on the contribution you'd like to review and you can see a description of the changes and the name of the branch being submitted for review.

The contributions panel contains a helpful tooltip with steps for reviewing the contribution, in case you forget!

Image of the "how to review contributions" modal.

You'll need to clone the branch locally to review and merge it in.

myProject/main> clone /@contributor/featureBranch
myProject/@contributor/featureBranch>

You can use themerge.previewcommand to see what changes will be made to the project if you merge in the contributor's branch.

myProject/@contributor/featureBranch> merge.preview /@contributor/featureBranch /main

If you're happy with the changes, you can merge the contributor's branch into your project'smainbranch.

myProject/@contributor/featureBranch> merge /@contributor/featureBranch /main

Finally, push your changes back to Unison Share to make them available to others orcreate a release!

Creating a PR

Assuming you haveclonedanother users project, you can create a PR by creating a branch with your Unison Share handle as a prefix. This branch should contain your suggested changes. This is called acontributor branch.

@libraryAuthor/project/main> branch /@yourHandle/featureBranch

Next, push your branch to Unison Share. You'll see a link to the branch url in the UCM.

@libraryAuthor/project/@yourHandle/featureBranch> push

Head to the project's "contributions" tab click on the "submit contribution" button.

Image of the contributions page with a "submit contributions" button at the top.

Select the branch containing your change and the target branch for your desired PR, then add a title and description of your changes.

Image of the create contribution modal with form fields for title and description.

Hit submit and you should see your PR in the list of contributions added to the main contributions page.

Finally, you can message our library authors in the #library channel inthe community slackto make sure they see your PR! In the future, we'll be adding automated notifications for PRs.

Deleting a remote branch from Unison Share

Deleting a remote branch from Unison Share can only be done via the Unison Share UI. Head to the project's home page and click on the drop-down menu where the current branch name is displayed. You'll see a short list of all the remote branches for the project. At the bottom of the drop down menu head to "View all branches" and from there you can delete your desired branch. You cannot delete branches that you do not own.