Git for Oracle Cloud Developers: Version Control Essentials

Why version control for Oracle Cloud

OIC and VBCS are low-code platforms, but they generate exportable artifacts — integration packages (.iar), VBCS application exports (.zip), SQL scripts, PL/SQL packages, BIP templates. Without version control:

• You can’t see what changed between versions
• You can’t roll back a bad deployment
• Team members overwrite each other’s work
• You have no audit trail for compliance

What to version control

OIC: export integrations as .iar files after each significant change. Name files: INTEGRATION_NAME_v1.2.0.iar. Commit to a oic-integrations/ folder.

VBCS: export the application periodically via Visual Builder Export. Commit the .zip to vbcs-apps/.

SQL/PL/SQL: every stored procedure, table DDL, and migration script goes in Git. File-per-object: procedures/pkg_order_mgmt.pkb, tables/orders_table.sql.

BIP templates: RTF and XSL files in a bip-templates/ folder.

OIC Lookups: export lookup table CSVs and version them.

Basic Git workflow for Oracle Cloud

# One-time setup:
git clone https://github.com/your-org/oracle-cloud-project.git
cd oracle-cloud-project

# Each change:
git checkout -b feature/oic-add-error-handling
# Make changes, add your .iar or .sql files
git add oic-integrations/ORDER_SYNC_v2.1.0.iar
git commit -m "feat(oic): add retry logic to order sync integration"
git push origin feature/oic-add-error-handling
# Create pull request for review

Commit message conventions

Use conventional commits for clarity:

• feat(oic): add invoice approval integration
• fix(vbcs): resolve date format issue on timesheet form
• refactor(sql): optimise order sync stored procedure
• docs: update deployment guide for v2.0

Branching strategy

• main: production code only
• develop: integration branch for completed features
• feature/*: individual features or integrations
• hotfix/*: urgent production fixes

CI/CD for Oracle Cloud

Automate deployment using OIC REST APIs from a CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps):

1. Export integration → commit to Git
2. CI pipeline triggers: import .iar to test environment via OIC REST API
3. Run smoke tests
4. Promote to production on approval