What Check-In Policies should be considered for version control?

Question

I'm tasked with helping to set up the process templates and check-in policies for my company's TFS 2008 installation.

Aside from three check-in policies (a check-in action must have comments against it, a code file must be peer-reviewed, there must be a work item associated with a check-in), I have been asked to consider and implement any others.

What are some of the most important or useful policies to enforce for version control?

Answer 1

The fewer the better.

Usually in an organization you want to ease the friction of check-in to ensure that you are encouraging developers to make frequent small discrete check-ins rather than checking out a load of stuff at once. Then again you want to ensure that you have a working codebase for everyone who needs it and are capturing the data that you need to improve your software delivery process.

Personally, a policy to enforce changeset comments and a work item association policy are ok - as they capture meta-data that is very easy to remember at the time but hard to find afterwards. It also encourages developers to get into the habit of having a work item to track all pieces of work - even experimental development or spikes.

The peer review process might be better performed using branching or another process rather than forcing a peer review on every check-in - however that depends on your process. Remember as well that you can have mandatory check-in notes in TFS to capture meta-data such as code reviewer. A check-in note is slightly different to a check-in policy and is often confused.

If you want read more discussion about check-in policies, take a look at a blog post I did on the balancing act a while ago. Also to hear some more discussion about check-in policies, I recorded a podcast recently with a fellow Team System MVP talking about their use of TFS and it might be interesting (Radio TFS, Using TFS with Ed Blankenship). Finally we also did a Radio TFS episode all about check-in policies in 2008 that might be of interest.

Answer 2

Don't break the build! Of course, finding an automated way to check on that and reject the check-in are the challenge.