The discussion revolves around the best branch to use for github.com/discourse/discourse. xiasummer initially used the “test_passed” branch but encountered issues and switched to “stable,” missing some features. They sought advice on branch selection.
xiasummer proposed guidelines for choosing a branch based on forum type and desired features. Stephen suggested that “tests_passed” is usually fine, and issues are more related to release processes than the branch itself. He recommended having a staging environment to test releases before applying upgrades.
awesomerobot advised running “tests-passed” and updating with beta releases for flexibility. They cautioned against using “stable” except in cases of extensive customization, citing the lengthy period between stable releases and limited backporting of bugs. Relevant discussions on the topic can be found here and here.
Recently, I encountered some problems in the default branch
“test_passed”, so I transferred to version stable. While I found that some beautiful features are gone. (Well, not very bad for that, but I’d like to know more about discourse branches).
I’m wondering if there are some suggestions, like:
If your forum is quite aggressive and you want to feel new features, you can choose xxx branch.
If your forum is very strict always in good working condition, and you yourself are very conservative and don’t want any bugs , you can choose xxx branch.
In both cases I would say tests_passed is usually fine. You can avoid upgrade problems by having a staging environment and testing your releases prior to applying upgrades.
The issues you describe above more relate to your own release processes than a particular branch of Discourse.
We recommend running tests-passed and updating when beta releases are available. This gives you the flexibility of updating when you want/need to.
Stable isn’t recommended except in select cases… like extensive customization (99% of the sites we host aren’t in this category). There are months between stable releases, and we only backport critical or security related bugs… so if there’s a minor bug in stable you may have to live with it for quite a while.
