Our customers follow tests-passed, but unlike Meta/try do not update automatically as soon as we commit. We update customers regularly, but not on a specific schedule. We deploy customers “as needed”. For example, if we got significant reports about a bug, or the bug is just really bad, we’ll generally deploy sites as soon as we know the bug is fixed. We’ll also do a deploy after we finish a new feature. Sometimes we’ll do a deploy due to a plugin update, which also causes Discourse to be updated. We’ll also deploy if we haven’t deployed in a while, to ensure we keep everyone up to date.
The beta branch is not a good representation of what our customers run.
Why tests-passed and not beta?
Most site admins update their sites when they receive the new beta notification. This notification is sent to all sites on tests-passed and beta. When they update they receive the most recent tests-passed commit, but generally will not update again until the next beta email. However, should they need to update between betas they can. If instead they tracked beta, they would not be able to update their site until we release another beta.
Does that help explain things @david?