Azure DevOps & copying code base from one project to another or finding a better way of doing this

Question

I'm seeking advice on the following:

In my development shop we support a SASS solution to our customers. We currently have 10 sites that we develop and provide technical support. We're a small team, just 2 of us. We're using Azure DevOps services to host and manage our code, right now we're just using it for a code repo. Within our organization, we multiple projects that represent site. Each site uses the same code base, except the web.config. The web.config is used to change the UI\theme for each customer. When we get a request to create a new site, we first create a new project site and then we copy our code base from the "golden copy" project.

We use a "golden copy" code base to make feature changes and bug fixes. Once we develop a new feature (or fix an issue) to the golden copy, and then we push it to test, QA beings testing. If testing is successful, then the development team copies the entire "golden copy" code files and copies the code to each site project, build and deploy to test for QA to ensure that site works with the new changes . This can be time consuming and prone to errors.

I would like to know the following: - Is there way in dev ops azure where we merge\copy from our golden copy to our other site project's repos? - Can you offer a better way for reorganizing our Organization\Projects setup based on our current setup\workflow.

Thank you,

Answer 1

As Shayki mentioned, you can consider adopting Git branching strategy. Distributed version control systems like Git give you flexibility in how you use version control to share and manage code.

Keep your branch strategy simple. Build your strategy from these three concepts:

• Use feature branches for all new features and bug fixes.
• Merge feature branches into the master branch using pull requests.
• Keep a high quality, up-to-date master branch.

A strategy that extends these concepts and avoids contradictions will result in a version control workflow for your team that is consistent and easy to follow. For details ,please refer to this official document.

Is there way in dev ops azure where we merge\copy from our golden copy to our other site project's repos?

For this issue , do you refer to synchronize the changes on the golden copy to other projects' repos? If so, I think it can only be done manually(copy the entire "golden copy" code files to each site project) or clone the entire repo into other projects through the following steps.

In other projects, select the Import repository option: