Broken Stable branch process

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Summary

It is unclear how the process for updating a stable branch with broken CI is

Problem

1. Engineers need a stable branch that is passing on dev.gitlab.org in order to complete backports
2. Most of the time master is fixed but not stable branches
3. Only release managers can merge into stable branches

Further details

• Pick in 12.X tags are different here.

Proposal

Clearly document a process (where?) in which authors can:

• Submit an MR (on https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab) to release managers to fix stable branches
• Detail how dev.gitlab.org stable branches will sync latest updates from https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab.

See:

• !21161 (comment 255512276)
• https://gitlab.slack.com/archives/C0XM5UU6B/p1575604985195200 (internal Slack thread)

See also:

• https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/releases/#self-managed-releases-2
• https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release/docs/blob/master/general/security/process.md