Git flow release branches and tags - with or without “v” prefix

Question

I have seen multiple contradicting definitions on various git flow related websites. Is there an official recommendation or single source of truth?

Branches: relea

Answer 1

https://semver.org/#is-v123-a-semantic-version

Is “v1.2.3” a semantic version? No, “v1.2.3” is not a semantic version. However, prefixing a semantic version with a “v” is a common way (in English) to indicate it is a version number. Abbreviating “version” as “v” is often seen with version control. Example: git tag v1.2.3 -m "Release version 1.2.3", in which case “v1.2.3” is a tag name and the semantic version is “1.2.3”.

Answer 2

Well, basically it is a matter of preference, but I prefer the version with the v, as Semver does it that way and I try to follow that specification as close as possible to get a sane versioning.

Edit note: Semver no longer specifies usage of the "v" prefix, but does not that it is "a common way to indicate a version number". In fact, Semver explicitly said that "v1.2.3" (for example) "is not a semantic version".

It also makes filtering for those Tags easier, as you can press v and then the TAB-key for autocompletion: This will list all the tags (and maybe a few branches), whereas there are several digits a tag could start with.

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See also: Is there a standard naming convention for git tags?

Answer 3

Since v stands for version, tags are generally named vX.Y.Z, with X.Y.Z following Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.

This allows for branches X.Y.Z to co-exist with those tags, without having to deal with error message like "fatal: Ambiguous object name" (as in "Ambiguous Names with GIT?").

Note that the tags for Git itself have recently been "adapted" for a surprising reason: see "Code version change “rules”".