RELEASES.md

Releases

This document explains the process to release new versions.

Versioning

Versions are expressed as vX.Y.Z;

• X is the major version
• Y is the minor version
• Z is the patch version

Release Cycle

• Major releases: arbitrary timing
• Minor releases: roughly every 2 months
• Patch releases: roughly every 2-3 weeks

Note: The team can release Release candidates(vX.Y.Z-rcXYZ) for versions at any time for early access/testing.

Major release

This refers to the release of new features or breaking changes.

Confirm the changelog and generate docs

• Run make release.

  This example assumes that vX.Y.Z will be released:

  make release version=vX.Y.Z

  The RELEASE file will be updated and docs vX.Y.x will be generated.

• Push the above changes and create a pull request to confirm the changelog. You can confirm the changelog through the reviewing comment in the pull request by actions-gh-release.

• Get reviews and merge.

Cut a new release

• Before cutting a new release, wait for all jobs in GitHub Actions to pass on the master branch.

• Create a tagged release from the master branch. The release should start with "v" and be followed by the version number.

Minor release

This refers to the release of new features (breaking change may be included).

Please refer to Major release for the processes.

Patch release

This refers to the release of critical bug fixes.
A bugfix for a functional issue (not a data loss or security issue) that only affects an alpha feature does not qualify as a critical bug fix.

This may also contain some minor features, but ensure that it does NOT contain any breaking changes.

Prerequisites

• gh is needed to be installed and ran gh auth login. Please refer to cli/cli.

Fix bugs

• Create a pull request to fix a bug on the master branch.

• Get reviews and merge.

Confirm the changelog and create Release Note

• Run make release/init.

  make release/init version=vX.Y.Z

  The RELEASE file will be updated.

• Push the above changes and create a pull request to master to confirm the changelog.

• Get a review and merge.

Backport fixes and Release Note

• Run cherry_pick workflow

  • Label the merged PR you want to cherry pick with cherry-pick , vX.Y.Z (e.g. v0.48.6 https://github.com/pipe-cd/pipecd/pulls?q=is%3Apr+label%3Acherry-pick+is%3Aclosed+label%3Av0.48.6)
  • Execute the cherry_pick GitHub workflow with release branch and release version on master branch. (e.g. if you want to release v0.48.6, release branch is release-v0.48.x and release version is v0.48.6)

• If you have some trouble with the above, run release pick commits on local machine.

  This example assumes that the name of a release branch is release-vX.Y.x and the numbers of pull request are #1234 and #5678:

  make release/pick branch=release-vX.Y.x pull_numbers="1234 5678"

• Get a review and merge.

Cut a new release

• Before cutting a new release, wait for all jobs in GitHub Actions to pass on the release branch.

• Create a tagged release from the release branch release-vX.Y.x. The release should start with "v" and be followed by the version number.

RC Release

1. Prepare: Ensure all changes you want to attach to the release are available in the release target branch (master for the minor, release-vX.Y.x for the patch). For the patch, please refer to Backport fixes and Release note
2. Move on to Releases > Draft a New Release.
3. Set values as below:
   1. Choose a tag: Create a new tag vX.Y.Z-rcN
   2. Target(branch): use master for the minor rc, use release-vX.Y.x for the patch rc
   3. Release title: Release vX.Y.Z-rcN
   4. Body area
      1. Copy from the previous rc-release note.
      2. Modify the version of > Note: This is a candidate release of vX.Y.Z. if needed.
      3. Modify the version of ## Changes since.
      4. List Changes:

         1. Extract commits to include by the below commands.

            $ PREVIOUS_TAG=v0.46.0-rc1 # Set the previous release tag
            $ git log $PREVIOUS_TAG..HEAD --oneline  | awk '{$1=""; print substr($0, 2)}'

            output(from newer to older):

            Add reference to the blog that shows how to install control plane on ECS (#4746)
            Update copyright (#4745)
            ...
            Add docs for SCRIPT_RUN stage (#4734)
            

         2. Classify the changes into 'Notable Changes' and 'Internal Changes'.

         3. Write them to the body area.

   5. Select Set as a pre-release, not Set as the latest release.
4. Push Publish Release.