zulip/docs/release-checklist.md

Zulip server release checklist

This document has reminders of things one might forget to do when preparing a new release.

A week before the release

• Upgrade all Python dependencies in requirements to latest upstream versions so they can burn in (use pip list --outdated).
• Update all the strings on Transifex and notify translators that they should translate the new strings to get them in for the next release.
• Update changelog.md with major changes going into the release.
• Create a burndown list of bugs that need to be fixed before we can release, and make sure all of them are being worked on.

Final release preparation

• Update changelog.md with any final changes since the last update.
• Draft the release notes; see previous zulip-announce emails for the tooling needed.
• Download updated translation strings from Transifex and commit them.
• Use build-release-tarball to generate a release tarball.
• Test the new tarball extensively, both new install and upgrade from last release, on both Trusty and Xenial.
• Repeat until release is ready.

Executing the release

• Do final updates to changelog.md.
• Update ZULIP_VERSION in version.py.
• Use build-release-tarball to generate a final release tarball.
• Post the release tarball on zulip.org and update zulip.org.
• Create a git tag and push the tag.
• Upload the release on GitHub so it doesn't provide a broken release tarball.
• Email zulip-announce with the release notes
• For a major release, post on the blog, tweet, etc.

Post-release

• Update ZULIP_VERSION in version.py to e.g. 1.6.0+git.