update maintainer docs for the forward merger page to support nbs (#710)

* update maintainer docs for the forward merger page to support nbs

* Apply suggestions from code review

Co-authored-by: Vyas Ramasubramani <[email protected]>

* Apply suggestions from code review

---------

Co-authored-by: Vyas Ramasubramani <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: James Lamb <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

maintainers/forward-merger.md

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ title: Forward Mergers
 
 ## Overview
 
-The forward mergers are automated pull requests to merge a branch in burndown into the next versioned branch. For example merging `branch-22.12` into `branch-23.02`. This ensures all changes to the current branch are reflected in the next version.
+The forward mergers are automated pull requests to merge a branch in burndown into the default development branch, such as merging `release/25.12` into `main`. This ensures all changes to the current release during burndown are reflected in the next version.
 
 Forward merging is implemented with the [ops-bot](https://github.com/rapidsai/ops-bot) forward-merger plugin. The plugin is activated for a repository by adding `forward_merger: true` to `.github/ops-bot.yaml`.
 
@@ -26,27 +26,27 @@ Operations
 
 ## Forward Mergers
 
-During the release process, the branch for the next release is created and set as default. For any repository in which the `forward-merger` plugin is enabled, forward-mergers automatically merge any commits made to the release branch to the latest default branch during burn down.
+During the release process, the branch for the next release is created and any pending PRs are re-targeted to it as part of the release. For any repository in which the `forward-merger` plugin is enabled, forward-mergers automatically merge any commits made to the release branch to the default development branch (typically `main`) during burn down.
 
 **When Forward Merging Fails**
 
 It is important to note that the forward-merge jobs will sometimes fail due to merge conflicts, and will request a manual merge to be done. *Never* use the GitHub Web UI to fix the merge conflicts as it will cause changes in the default branch to be merged into the release branch. Please use the following steps to fix the merge conflicts manually:
 
-Using the example of `branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}` release branch and a new default `branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}`.
+Using the example of `release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}` release branch and default development branch of `main`.
 
 ```sh
-git checkout branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
+git checkout release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
 git pull <rapidsai remote>
-git checkout branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}
+git checkout main
 git pull <rapidsai remote>
-git checkout -b branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}-merge-branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
-git merge --no-squash branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
+git checkout -b main-merge-release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
+git merge --no-squash release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
 # Fix any merge conflicts caused by this merge
-git commit -am "Merge branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }} into branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}"
-git push <personal fork> branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}-merge-branch-{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
+git commit -am "Merge release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }} into main"
+git push <personal fork> main-merge-release/{{ site.data.releases.stable.version }}
 ```
 
-Once this is done, open a PR that targets the new default branch (`branch-{{ site.data.releases.nightly.version }}` in this example) with your changes.
+Once this is done, open a PR that targets the default development branch (`main` in this example) with your changes.
 
 **IMPORTANT**:
 - When merging this PR, do not use the [auto-merger]({% link resources/auto-merger.md %}) (i.e. the `/merge` comment). Instead, use the `/merge nosquash` comment. This ensures that branch history is preserved and branches remain compatible.