Consider using cascading settings for default branch name

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• Close this issue

• Previous issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/293953
• Related discussion: !57101 (comment 544680265)
• Cascading settings documentation: !58917 (merged)

With the change introduced in !57101 (merged) the inheritance logic for default branches will be:

Instance level	Root group	SubGroup 1	SubGroup 2	Project 1 (Result)
instance	-	-	-	instance
instance	root	-	-	root
instance	-	sub1	-	instance
instance	-	-	sub2	sub2
instance	root	sub1	-	root
instance	root	-	sub2	sub2
instance	-	sub1	sub2	sub2
instance	root	sub1	sub2	sub2

We select default branch setting in this order: direct group settings -> root group settings -> instance settings -> default git settings

Searching for default branch settings in the chain of groups (for deeply nested projects) can have a negative effect on the performance.

Proposal

Explore and apply cascading settings for default branches: #291082 (closed) (suggested here - !57101 (comment 544680265))