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I have a 'plan' or 'todo' file in the root of my project (python, though that's not really relevant to this specific question). The scope of the project is pretty small, I'm the only programmer working on it.

This text file just contains a list of tasks which need to be done. When a bug is reported, I'd add it to the list. Feature requests as well. Permanent features of this list are things like '100% test coverage' etc. All bugs/requests are generated through direct contact with me (face-to-face from users of the system, or perhaps, and rarely, by email).

This works fine for the naive single-dev single-master-branch workflow, but I'm experimenting with using one branch per hotfix/feature (as well as a develop branch for larger things), and I realize this doesn't seem to gel well with a single 'todo' file. Mainly because the question is, when adding a new bug, which branch should I modify?

Here's the options as I see them:-

  1. Don't track the 'todo' file at all.

  2. Modify the 'todo' file exclusively in the master branch.

  3. Modify the 'todo' file as the first action in any new branch (hotfix/feature) creation.

1 doesn't seem ideal, especially if I'm working from multiple machines (oh, I forgot because I've been on my desktop more often recently, great excuse). May as well keep the file somewhere on dropbox in this case. 2 seems fine, but increases the amount of pointless rebasing if I'm going to be hanging around in a feature/develop branch for some time. 3 risks me forgetting a branch exists and not having any reminders in a 'todo' file to jog that memory.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Ng Oon-Ee
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    How about an actual issue/bug tracker? – 1615903 May 04 '17 at 07:13
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    If you consider keeping it in dropbox this suggests you are working on your project on multiple computers. How are you synchronizing your git project across those computers? Are you using a cloud hosted repository provider, such as Github or Bitbucket? If so then these already come with excellent issue trackers that you should use. Keeping it in source control is going to be a hassle as you've already discovered so I would definitely not recommend it. – Lasse V. Karlsen May 04 '17 at 07:21
  • Yes I'm using a repository provider, but the scale of my project is such that issue trackers are probably overkill. Let me adjust the question a bit regarding that. Also, issue trackers such as those github/bitbucket provide require me to be online to use, something which I can't guarantee. – Ng Oon-Ee May 04 '17 at 08:05
  • Same problem here. Did you find any solution? I found [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/40096943/4545530) but have not tried it yet, so cannot say if it's practical. What do you think? (It's about configuration files but I think the same basic problem) – mkiever Sep 24 '18 at 17:45
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    @mkiever I've since (based partly on the last sentence in the 2nd comment) decided that todo lists aren't meant to be part of source control, and instead have a separate 'general' git repo with all my todo lists from various software and real world projects which I then check regularly. The link you post seems interesting but complicated (you'd have to do this again and again) – Ng Oon-Ee Sep 26 '18 at 01:59

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