# Release Checklist

These instructions were produced while making the 1.15.0 release. They are based on the original instructions (in old revisions in the file docs/how_to_make_a_tahoe-lafs_release.org).

Any contributor can do the first part of the release preparation. Only certain contributors can perform other parts. These are the two main sections of this checklist (and could be done by different people).

A final section describes how to announce the release.

## Any Contributor

Anyone who can create normal PRs should be able to complete this portion of the release process.

### Prepare for the Release

The master branch should always be releasable.

It may be worth asking (on IRC or mailing-ist) if anything will be merged imminently (for example, “I will prepare a release this coming Tuesday if you want to get anything in”).

- Create a ticket for the release in Trac
- Ticket number needed in next section

### Create Branch and Apply Updates

- Create a branch for release-candidates (e.g. XXXX.release-1.15.0.rc0)
- run tox -e news to produce a new NEWS.txt file (this does a commit)
- create the news for the release
  - newsfragments/<ticket number>.minor
  - commit it
- manually fix NEWS.txt
  - proper title for latest release (“Release 1.15.0” instead of “Release …post1432”)
  - double-check date (maybe release will be in the future)
  - spot-check the release notes (these come from the newsfragments files though so don’t do heavy editing)
  - commit these changes
- update “relnotes.txt”
  - update all mentions of 1.14.0 -> 1.15.0
  - update “previous release” statement and date
  - summarize major changes
  - commit it
- update “nix/tahoe-lafs.nix”
  - change the value given for version from OLD.post1 to NEW.post1
- update “CREDITS”
  - are there any new contributors in this release?
  - one way: git log release-1.14.0.. | grep Author | sort | uniq
  - commit it
- update “docs/known_issues.rst” if appropriate
- update “docs/Installation/install-tahoe.rst” references to the new release
- Push the branch to github
- Create a (draft) PR; this should trigger CI (note that github doesn’t let you create a PR without some changes on the branch so running + committing the NEWS.txt file achieves that without changing any code)
- Confirm CI runs successfully on all platforms

### Create Release Candidate

Before “officially” tagging any release, we will make a release-candidate available. So there will be at least 1.15.0rc0 (for example). If there are any problems, an rc1 or rc2 etc may also be released. Anyone can sign these releases (ideally they’d be signed “officially” as well, but it’s better to get them out than to wait for that).

Typically expert users will be the ones testing release candidates and they will need to evaluate which contributors’ signatures they trust.

- (all steps above are completed)

- sign the release

  - git tag -s -u 0xE34E62D06D0E69CFCA4179FFBDE0D31D68666A7A -m “release Tahoe-LAFS-1.15.0rc0” tahoe-lafs-1.15.0rc0
  - (replace the key-id above with your own)

- build all code locally - these should all pass:

  > - tox -e py27,codechecks,docs,integration

  - these can fail (ideally they should not of course):
    - tox -e deprecations,upcoming-deprecations

- build tarballs

  - tox -e tarballs
  - confirm it at least exists:
  - ls dist/ | grep 1.15.0rc0

- inspect and test the tarballs

  - install each in a fresh virtualenv
  - run tahoe command

- when satisfied, sign the tarballs:

  - gpg –pinentry=loopback –armor –detach-sign dist/tahoe_lafs-1.15.0rc0-py2-none-any.whl
  - gpg –pinentry=loopback –armor –detach-sign dist/tahoe_lafs-1.15.0rc0.tar.bz2
  - gpg –pinentry=loopback –armor –detach-sign dist/tahoe_lafs-1.15.0rc0.tar.gz
  - gpg –pinentry=loopback –armor –detach-sign dist/tahoe_lafs-1.15.0rc0.zip

## Privileged Contributor

Steps in this portion require special access to keys or infrastructure. For example, access to tahoe-lafs.org to upload binaries or edit HTML.

### Hack Tahoe-LAFS

Did anyone contribute a hack since the last release? If so, then https://tahoe-lafs.org/hacktahoelafs/ needs to be updated.

### Sign Git Tag

- git tag -s -u 0xE34E62D06D0E69CFCA4179FFBDE0D31D68666A7A -m “release Tahoe-LAFS-X.Y.Z” tahoe-lafs-X.Y.Z

### Upload Artifacts

Any release-candidate or actual release plus signature (.asc file) need to be uploaded to https://tahoe-lafs.org in ~source/downloads

- secure-copy all release artifacts to the download area on the tahoe-lafs.org host machine. ~source/downloads on there maps to https://tahoe-lafs.org/downloads/ on the Web.
- scp dist/1.15.0 username@tahoe-lafs.org:/home/source/downloads
- the following developers have access to do this:
  - exarkun
  - meejah
  - warner

For the actual release, the tarball and signature files need to be uploaded to PyPI as well.

- how to do this?
- (original guide says only twine upload dist/*)
- the following developers have access to do this:
  - warner
  - exarkun (partial?)
  - meejah (partial?)

### Announcing the Release Candidate

The release-candidate should be announced by posting to the mailing-list (tahoe-dev@tahoe-lafs.org). For example: https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2020-October/009995.html

### Is The Release Done Yet?

If anyone reports a problem with a release-candidate then a new release-candidate should be made once a fix has been merged to master. Repeat the above instructions with rc1 or rc2 or whatever is appropriate.

Once a release-candidate has marinated for some time then it can be made into a the actual release.

The actual release follows the same steps as above, with some differences:

- there is no “-rcX” on the end of release names
- the release is uploaded to PyPI (using Twine)
- the version is tagged in Git (ideally using “the tahoe release key” but can be done with any of the authorized core developers’ personal key)
- the release-candidate branches must be merged back to master after the release is official (e.g. causing newsfragments to be deleted on master, etc)

## Announcing the Release

### mailing-lists

A new Tahoe release is traditionally announced on our mailing-list (tahoe-dev@tahoe-lafs.org). The former version of these instructions also announced the release on the following other lists:

- tahoe-announce@tahoe-lafs.org
- twisted-python@twistedmatrix.com
- liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu
- lwn@lwn.net
- p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com
- python-list@python.org
- http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/
- cryptopp-users@googlegroups.com

### wiki

Edit the “News” section of the front page of https://tahoe-lafs.org with a link to the mailing-list archive of the announcement message.