6.0 KiB
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
- For a major release (e.g. 4.0):
- Upgrade all Python dependencies in
requirements
to latest upstream versions so they can burn in (usepip list --outdated
). - Upgrade all puppet dependencies in
puppet/deps.yaml
- Upgrade all puppet-installed dependencies (e.g. Smokescreen, go,
etc) in
puppet/zulip/manifests/common.pp
- Upload strings to
Transifex
using
push-translations
. Post a Transifex Announcement notifying translators that we're approaching a release. - Merge draft updates to the changelog with changes since the last release. While doing so, take notes on things that might need follow-up work or documentation before we can happily advertise them in a release blog post.
- Inspect all
TODO/compatibility
comments for whether we can remove any backwards-compatibility code in this release.
- Upgrade all Python dependencies in
- Create a burn-down list of issues that need to be fixed before we can release, and make sure all of them are being worked on.
- Draft the release blog post (a.k.a. the release notes) in Paper. In it, list the important changes in the release, from most to least notable.
Final release preparation
- Update the Paper blog post draft with any new commits.
- Except minor releases: 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 Ubuntu 20.04.
- Repeat until release is ready.
- Send around the Paper blog post draft for review.
- Move the blog post draft to Ghost:
- Use "··· > Export > Markdown" to get a pretty good markdown conversion, then insert that as a Markdown block in Ghost.
- Proofread, especially for formatting.
- Tag the post with "Release announcements" first, then any other tags (e.g. "Security").
Executing the release
-
Create the release commit, on
main
(for major releases) or on the release branch (for minor releases):- Copy the Markdown release notes for the release into
docs/overview/changelog.md
. - Verify the changelog passes lint, and has the right release date.
- Except minor releases: Adjust the
changelog.md
heading to have the stable release series boilerplate. - Update
ZULIP_VERSION
andLATEST_RELEASE_VERSION
inversion.py
. - Except minor releases: Update
API_FEATURE_LEVEL
to a feature level for the final release, and document a reserved range.
- Copy the Markdown release notes for the release into
-
Tag that commit with an unsigned Git tag named the release number.
-
Use
build-release-tarball
to generate a final release tarball. -
Push the tag and release commit.
-
Upload the tarball using
tools/upload-release
. -
Post the release by editing the latest tag on GitHub; use the text from
changelog.md
for the release notes.Note: This will trigger the GitHub action for updating DigitalOcean one-click app image. The action uses the latest release tarball published on
download.zulip.com
for creating the image. -
Update the Docker image:
- Update
ZULIP_GIT_REF
inDockerfile
- Update
README.md
- Update the image in
docker-compose.yml
, as well as theZULIP_GIT_REF
- Update the image in
kubernetes/zulip-rc.yml
- Build the image:
docker build . -t zulip/docker-zulip:4.11-0 --no-cache
- Also tag it with
latest
:docker build . -t zulip/docker-zulip:latest
- Push those tags:
docker push zulip/docker-zulip:4.11-0; docker push zulip/docker-zulip:latest
- Update the latest version in the README in Docker Hub.
- Commit the changes and push them to
main
.
- Update
-
Publish the blog post; check the box to "send by email."
-
Announce the release, pointing to the blog post, via:
- Email to zulip-announce
- Message in #announce
- Tweet from @zulip.
Post-release
- The DigitalOcean one-click image will report in an internal channel once it is built, and how to test it. Verify it, then publish it publish it to DigitalOcean marketplace.
- Update the CI targets:
- For major releases only: In all of the following steps, also bump up the series that are being tested.
- Update the version in
tools/ci/build-docker-images
- Run
tools/ci/build-docker-images
- Push at least the latest of those, e.g. using
docker push zulip/ci:bullseye-4.11
; update the others at your discretion. - Update the
docker_image
in theproduction_upgrade
step of.github/workflows/production-suite.yml
. - Commit those two changes in a PR.
- Following a major release (e.g. 4.0):
- Create a release branch (e.g.
4.x
). - On the release branch, update
ZULIP_VERSION
inversion.py
to the present release with a+git
suffix, e.g.4.0+git
. - On
main
, updateZULIP_VERSION
to the future major release with a-dev+git
suffix, e.g.5.0-dev+git
. Make a Git tag for this update commit with a-dev
suffix, e.g.5.0-dev
. Push the tag to both zulip.git and zulip-internal.git to get a correct version number for future Cloud deployments. - Consider removing a few old releases from ReadTheDocs; we keep about two years of back-versions.
- Create a release branch (e.g.
- Following a minor release (e.g. 3.2):
- On the release branch, update
ZULIP_VERSION
to the present release with a+git
suffix, e.g.3.2+git
. - On main, update
LATEST_RELEASE_VERSION
with the released version. - On main, cherry-pick the changelog changes from the release branch.
- On the release branch, update