How can I ensure that people who clone my repository really get the latest version (without having to do an update -C tip)?

[Kurt Häusler]

Hi,
I have been evaluating mercurial by myself for a few months now, and
find it great. I have a linux server offsite storing the repository in
a centralized fashion, with the web interface, so I can see the
summary and changelog etc. As far as I know that server has no
"working copy".

I originally had one branch locally, then split that into a prototype
and development branch, and at the same time I restructured my local
directories to have a project-in, project-proto, project-dev and
project-out directories.

The idea being that project-in is a direct clone of the "centralized"
repository, proto and dev are my working directory, and project-out
stores my changesets before uploading to the centralized repository.
All was working fine.

Recently I merged the branches, and everything was working fine after
that too, I always had the newest version locally like I expected.

However now someone wants to clone my repository. So they made a clone
in their local directory from the centralized server , but they get an
old version, and I cannot workout how to get their new version.

On the website, the tip contains all the latest branches, and is
associated with the branch name "prototype"

The local cloned copy I am not sure of however. If I type in hg heads,
it also reports the latest changeset (25), branch prototype, tag tip
etc, and the most recent change date and summary field.

However when I type in hg parents I see a much older changeset (15)
with an old date and old summary item, and no information about branch
or tag.

hg update does nothing. hg update -C prototype says it updates 1 file,
but I don't know which one, and it certainly doesn't give me the
newest version, in fact hg parents reports changeset (14) this time
with the tag prototype.

Finally I perform a hg update -C tip, and the working directory is
updated to the latest changeset(25). (Why didn't hg update -C
prototype do that?)

There will be a few more people cloning my repository soon, and I
would like to make sure that a clone operation always gets the newest
tip with out having to do an explicit update -C tip?

Thanks
Kurt