How to create branch-specific files on GitHub
Let's say project is a name of the branch to be merged, and README.md is a name of the file that keep branch specific information.
I would suggest the following steps:
Merge project branch, but make sure changes are not committed, and not fast-forwarded
$ git merge --no-commit --no-ff projectUnstage
README.mdfile and checkout its current branch version$ git checkout HEAD -- README.mdComplete merge
$ git commit
Also, it makes sense to install merge driver that will keep branch specific version of a file in case of merge conflict. In such case, you will never need to resolve conflicts in branch specific files manually.
Such merge driver is usually called ours and defined as:
$ git config --global merge.ours.driver trueNow, you can specify in .gitattributes file, when this merger should be used.
In our case, it is needed to add the following rule to .gitattributes and commit it:
README.md merge=ours