Tweaking the .gitreview file is the most intensive part of make-wmf-branch.
Dropping the .gitreview file would be an ideal solution—allowing us to make the branch in gerrit; however it may result in unexpected behavior.
Since git-review version ̀1.25.0, it set up the tracking branch when a downloading a change and can be instructed to default to the tracked branch when sending a patch. Then:
- In .git-review replace defaultbranch = xxxx with track =1
- Get developers to use git-review 1.25.0 or later
- Eventually get people to make that a global option with: git config --global --add gitreview.track 1
We will want to update doc and announce the requirement change with instruction to upgrade. See for T146293#2658764 details.