Salt Release Process¶

Feature Release Process¶

When a new release is ready to be cut, the person responsible for cutting the release will follow the following steps (written using the 0.16 release as an example):

1. All open issues on the release milestone should be moved to the next release milestone. (e.g. from the 0.16 milestone to the 0.17 milestone)
2. Release notes should be created documenting the major new features and bugfixes in the release.
3. Create an annotated tag with only the major and minor version numbers, preceded by the letter v. (e.g. v0.16) This tag will reside on the develop branch.
4. Create a branch for the new release, using only the major and minor version numbers. (e.g. 0.16)
5. On this new branch, create an annotated tag for the first revision release, which is generally a release candidate. It should be preceded by the letter v. (e.g. v0.16.0rc1)
6. The release should be packaged from this annotated tag and uploaded to PyPI as well as the GitHub releases page for this tag.
7. The packagers should be notified on the salt-packagers mailing list so they can create packages for all the major operating systems. (note that release candidates should go in the testing repositories)
8. After the packagers have been given a few days to compile the packages, the release is announced on the salt-users mailing list.
9. Log into RTD and add the new release there. (Have to do it manually)

Maintenance and Bugfix Releases¶

Once a feature release branch has been cut from develop, the branch moves into a "feature freeze" state. The new release branch enters the merge-forward chain and only bugfixes should be applied against the new branch. Once major bugs have been fixed, a bugfix release can be cut:

1. On the release branch (i.e. 0.16), create an annotated tag for the revision release. It should be preceded by the letter v. (e.g. v0.16.2) Release candidates are unnecessary for bugfix releases.
2. The release should be packaged from this annotated tag and uploaded to PyPI.
3. The packagers should be notified on the salt-packagers mailing list so they can create packages for all the major operating systems.
4. After the packagers have been given a few days to compile the packages, the release is announced on the salt-users mailing list.

For more information about the difference between the develop branch and bugfix release branches, please refer to the Which Salt Branch? section of Salt's Contributing documentation.