Promotion pipeline for templates from test to stage to prod

[TacoLlama]

I would like feedback on how to safely promote templates from Test to Stage to Prod. I run into this same problem for any new templates, but today's example is a Page template.

I have the following setup:

• A github repo with three branches: test, stage, and prod.
• A Shopify development store that we use for testing and development. The theme connects to Github using the Test branch.
• A Shopify production store that we use for selling to customers. The theme uses the Prod branch.
  • This store also has a the Stage branch connected as another theme.

I set this Stage setup to test changes on Prod before setting them live. Using the live databases for Products, etc. But I have issues with smoothly promoting some content from Test to Stage. Here's the scenario I have right now:

1. Create a new page and a new template on Test.
2. Make changes on the new page and template on Test.
3. Promote Theme changes to Stage.
4. Export Page via Matrixify, or manually recreate the page on Stage.
5. ISSUE: I am unable to set the new page to the new template. Because the template doesn't exist in my Prod branch. To apply the template to the page, I would have to either push the changes all the way to Prod or push Stage to be my active theme for a few moments.

I know that theoretically, I can create the empty template and push that down the pipeline, then make the page, make the changes, etc later. But this is a highly error prone manual process change.

Do you have any recommendations for how to deal with this in a more sustainable way?