Why does satis add -dev to every version and how can I configure this behavior?

Question

I have tried several different methods of tagging versions in my Mercurial repo including branch names, bookmarks and tags and satis appends -dev to bookmarks and branches. Can I configure satis to consider the default branch as stable instead of dev? Do I have to make explicit tags for each stable version?

Answer 1

Satis add "dev-" prefix to any branch name, and "-dev" suffix to branch names resembling version numbers like 1.0.x. And this is intentional, because that is how Composer deals with branches that do change it's content when people continue development and commit stuff.

So on one day the branch "dev-master" points to a totally broken version, and one day later it is close to the next possible release.

It is not recommended to use branches to include software into another project. Tag your software, and let Satis create downloadable ZIP packages. If you stick to sematic versioning, you and anyone using your library will be able to update without getting into trouble with incompatible changes.

If you really want to use a branch, you have to either set minimum-stability to "dev", or explicitly include a development branch as a stable version's alias. Note that you have to run Satis every time you commit something to that repository to reflect the changes, and only then you would see the update happening in your other software.

Tagging the software isn't too bad, I'd recommend you try it.