Add branch creation rules and update pipeline triggers

[Vladimir Morozov (vmoroz)]

Description

Type of Change

• Automation (CI/pipeline and repository-policy changes)
• This change requires a documentation update

Why

We want the repository's branch list to stay clean and the pipelines to target a
deliberate, documented set of branches. Until now anyone could create a top-level
branch, and the pipelines still referenced 0.82-stable, which we are retiring.
This change adds a branch-creation policy and pins the pipelines to the branches we
actually support. It builds on the recent .ado pipeline work (#16379).

What

• Branch-creation ruleset (.ado/repo-rules/). A checked-in GitHub repository
  ruleset that only allows new branches under approved namespaces (user/<alias>/…
  for personal work, plus tooling namespaces like dependabot/, copilot/,
  prepare-release/, integrate/, cherry-pick/, *-stable, and so on). It is
  creation-only, so existing branches and pushes are unaffected. The folder README
  has the apply/update/rollback commands and documents the pattern-matching
  gotchas. Keeping it in the repo gives the live policy a reviewable history.

• Supported branch set in the pipelines. All pipelines that list branches use
  the same set — main + 0.81/0.83/0.84/0.85/0.86/0.87-stable. CI and Release
  drop 0.82-stable; the PR pipeline is set to that explicit list (its former
  *-stable wildcard and master are removed); the prepare-release bot now has a
  YAML CI trigger on that set (moved out of the ADO UI) and its targetBranch
  dropdown drops 0.82/0.80/0.74 and adds 0.83–0.87.

• Docs (.ado/README.md). A new "Supported branches" table is the source of
  truth for the set, with per-pipeline notes and a pointer to the branch-creation
  ruleset. Each branch list carries a "keep in sync" comment back to it.

• Integration pipeline namespace fix. integrate-rn.yaml now pushes its branch
  as integrate/<version> instead of the top-level integrate-<version>, so it
  stays within the namespaces the new ruleset allows.

Testing

The ruleset patterns were verified against real branch names with the same
fnmatch engine GitHub uses, then applied and smoke-tested live (a top-level push
was rejected; a user/… push was accepted). Pipeline YAML changes are limited to
trigger branch lists and were validated locally.

Changelog

Should this change be included in the release notes: no

Internal CI/pipeline and repository-policy change; retires the 0.82-stable branch
from the build pipelines.

Microsoft Reviewers: Open in CodeFlow

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds branch-creation governance and aligns Azure pipelines with documented supported branches.

Changes:

• Adds a namespaced-branch ruleset and operational documentation.
• Synchronizes CI, PR, release, and prepare-release branch filters.
• Updates integration branches to use integrate/….

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.config/1espt/PipelineAutobaseliningConfig.yml	Unrelated no-op rewrite.
.ado/repo-rules/README.md	Documents ruleset management.
.ado/repo-rules/branch-namespace-ruleset.json	Defines allowed branch namespaces.
.ado/README.md	Documents supported branches.
.ado/ci-pipeline.yml	Updates CI branches.
.ado/pr-pipeline.yml	Updates PR target branches.
.ado/release-pipeline.yml	Updates release triggers.
.ado/prepare-release-bot.yml	Adds YAML triggers and target options.
.ado/integrate-rn.yaml	Uses the integrate/ namespace.

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