{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreidnyu64gmmk7xyzvpffdnc4npbrjvcn2xl4cgp2xpd2rrdwdzrttm",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:yrn4rbgwenb6lfhhzjegbtnc/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgw2cu3yqcl2"
  },
  "path": "/t/best-practice-syncing-the-master-and-beta-branches/11845#post_1",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-12T12:17:51.000Z",
  "site": "https://discourse.flathub.org",
  "tags": [
    "GitHub’s inability to do proper fast-forward merges"
  ],
  "textContent": "I am wondering how to cleanly synchronize the `master` and `beta` branches of my flathub repositories. A typical workflow is that `beta` is updated more frequently than `master`, but that after an update to `master`, `beta` should be identical to it until new beta releases are attempted. In such cases I’d like `beta` and `master` to point to exactly the same commit SHA. But I haven’t found a way to do this. I can create a PR from `master` to `beta`, but with GitHub’s inability to do proper fast-forward merges, it always creates either a merge commit or a modified commit in the `beta` branch that make the branches point to different SHAs, even though the content is identical.\n\nI have tried creating a PR, waiting for the build to finish and succeed, and then pushing the same head commit to `beta`, but it’s forbidden, too.\n\nAm I missing something? Is there a trick to achieve this?",
  "title": "Best practice: Syncing the master and beta branches"
}