gitflow: bugfixing an upcoming release

Question

I started to use the gitflow concept recently and I have a question about the release-* branches.

Whenever I make a new release(-branch), I perform some kind of a validation to verify that the essential parts of the software still function as expected. Every now and then, this reveals some bugs that need fixing before this code can be accepted as the new stable-release version.

If those bugs have a simple solution, I can make a single commit on that release-* branch, merge it to develop, and I'm done.
However, I'm not quite sure what I should do when the bug is a bit more complicated.

• I can't use a feature-branch:
  Those start from develop, which has moved on since the release was initiated.

• I don't think I should use a hotfix branch:
  I need to start from a release-branch instead of master, and I don't want the changes to be merged into master either (at least not before the complete release was properly validated).

• I don't think I should work directly on the release-branch:
  This can generate broken code on the release-branch (code that is still under development is almost never good code)

Maybe I should use a releasefix-* branch or something similar...? Any ideas?

Answer 1

After a small discussing with my colleagues, I used a new branch-type: releasefix

Branches of this type should be

• Branched of the current release-branch (assuming new releases may only be initiated when no other releases are still pending)
• Merged into the release-branch (its parent) and the develop-branch
• starting with the releasefix- prefix

I used a new branch-type for it to make sure no release-fixes would accidentally be merged in the wrong branches.