Updating an existing ESR report repo

[CarissaGervasi-NOAA]

We had a discussion about updating the Caribbean ESR for 2026 and how we should go about editing the repository (we don't want the webpage to be in this constant transition state). After some digging I think I found a good workflow. Brendan was right, you can have branches within branches (called feature branches). Apparently this is what developers do. We treat it like a hierarchy.

• main branch (does not get touched until the new report is finished and ready to go live)
  • update-2026 branch (essentially our main branch through the development phase)
    • sst-2026 (feature branch created by collaborator who is working on updating a specific part of the report)

So our workflow would be this:

1. Create a release (like v2025) to preserve the repo as it is now.
2. Create a new development branch (like update-2026). This will essentially be our working main branch.
3. Whenever one of us wants to update part of the report, make a feature branch within the update-2026 branch, make necessary updates, and do a pull request to update-2026.
4. When we are all happy with the report, we can do a final pull request back to the main branch and the html page for the report will be updated with the github action.

@BrittanyTroast-NOAA @MandyKarnauskas-NOAA @BrendanTurley-NOAA @willklaj how does this sound?

[BrendanTurley-NOAA]

Sounds amazing, let's do it! I suspect there will be minor issues that need to be thought through as we progress, but this is a nice framework to get started and put in the best practices doc.

[BrittanyTroast-NOAA]

Yes, this sounds great! That gives us a good space to stay organized and work well while leaving room for mistakes. I agree with Brendan that it'll have its own little quirks but we should be able to work through them.

[MandyKarnauskas-NOAA]

This sounds great - thanks for investigating! I will need someone to hold my hand the first time doing this... perhaps we can walk through the process in a future tech team meeting.