Checklist of things to do for a release

The release steps are described on this page. For more information on the roadmap and schedule leading up to a release, see the RoadMap page.

Version identification

The major.minor.micro semantic versioning scheme is followed, with guidance from ​PEP:0440. However, since the major version is rarely incremented, we generally refer to a 1.x release a major release and a 1.x.y release a minor release.

In the event that a critical defect is discovered after a release is made, the micro version number should be incremented and a new minor release created. In the event that a packaging or distribution error results in the need to generate a new package name, a ​post-release identifier should be added, starting with post1. The post-release identifier is added by editing tag_build in setup.cfg​.

For example, a filename cannot be reused when uploading to PyPI ​more than once, so a post-release is necessary in the event of a packaging or uploading error.

Preparing a minor release 1.x.y

2 weeks before

Announce a string freeze on Trac-dev, so that the translators can catch up with the latest changes.

Update the TracDev/ReleaseTesting page, ask for testers.

1 week before

Prepare the rc1 packages according to the procedure described below in Release steps, test and upload them.

Testing period. Only critical or no risk fixes.

Preparing a major release 1.x

Prepare a stabilization branch

That way, work can continue on trunk​.

Things to adapt in the new stable branch:

• the SVN_BRANCH parameter in the AppVeyor configuration (e.g. r14945)

1 month before

Announce a beta1 / string freeze on Trac-dev.

2 weeks before

Prepare the rc1 packages.

Testing period. Only critical or no risk fixes.

Release steps

Check the t.e.o wiki

• Update the TracChangeLog page.
• Verify TracInstall and TracUpgrade.
• For major releases:
  • Check TracDev/ReleaseNotes, go through the tickets which have an empty Release Notes field and say a word there.
  • Check TracDev/ApiChanges.

Check the source

Wiki related files

• Verify that TracStandalone#Reference matches current tracd --help.
• Verify that trac/wiki/default-pages matches the list of pages in TracProject/DefaultWikiPages.
• Sync the wiki.
• Update RELEASE.rst​ from wiki TracChangeLog (File is named RELEASE for Trac < 1.2).
• Sync UPGRADE.rst​ and INSTALL.rst​ from the wiki using contrib/wiki2rst.py​ (Files are named UPGRADE and INSTALL for Trac < 1.2).

  $ ./contrib/wiki2rst.py TracUpgrade > UPGRADE.rst
  $ ./contrib/wiki2rst.py TracInstall > INSTALL.rst
  

• Preview ReST using ​docutils.

  $ rst2html.py UPGRADE.rst > UPGRADE.html
  $ open UPGRADE.html
  $ rst2html.py INSTALL.rst > INSTALL.html
  $ open INSTALL.html
  

Other repository files

• Remove extraneous whitespace in Python source files using ​reindent.
• Import the translations from Transifex that have no committers.
• Check the THANKS​ and AUTHORS​ files.
• Check version number in setup.py​, trac/wiki/default-pages/WikiStart​, and trac/__init__.py​.
• Check that the jQuery and jQuery UI version numbers mentioned in the help match the actual ones, see for example r11041.
• Update copyright year on about​ page and COPYING​ file.
• Check whether there are any eligible changesets that have not been merged into the branch.
• Comment out tag_build setting in setup.cfg​.

Prepare packages

Prerequisites

• Use Python 2.7.9 or later on Windows.
• Create a new virtual environment and install the release requirements:

  $ pip install -Ur requirements-release.txt
  

Create dist packages

• Check out the release branch.
• Build source archive (tarball) and wheel on Unix:

  $ make release
  

• Build Windows exe installers on x86 and x64 (x86-64) platforms. The installer should be built using ​python for the specified architecture.

  > make release
  

Verify installation on target platforms

• Install in a new virtual environment.
• Smoke test:
  • create an environment with trac-admin, test it with tracd
  • upgrade an environment created with the previous release' trac-admin, test it with tracd

Upload packages

• ​Upload the packages to ​PyPi (*).

  $ twine upload dist/*
  

• Upload to ​https://ftp.edgewall.org/pub/trac.
  • Upload to dist in your home directory using make upload version=...
  • Move the files to /var/ftp/pub/trac
  • Run update_latest.sh in /var/ftp/pub/trac.
    • For stable release: ./update_latest <version>
    • For dev release: ./update_latest <version> dev

Finalize the release

• Test easy_install Trac.
• Tag/copy version in subversion.
• Update TracDownload.
• Close ​release coordination ticket. (*)
• Mark the finished milestones as completed (with the completed date preferably being the date that the releases were announced), and change their descriptions from next maintenance/development release to latest maintenance/development release.
  • The next set of milestones should have their descriptions changed to next maintenance/development release.
  • The previous set of milestones should have their descriptions changed to remove the latest maintenance/development release message.
  • Attach copy of translations statistics chart of Transifex to the milestones.
  A Version will be automatically created (milestone_to_version.py​ is installed).

Announce the release

• Post to the following channels:
  • ​trac-users, ​trac-dev (all releases)
  • ​trac-announce, ​#TracProject, ​python-announce (python-announce-list@python.org)
• Update the version displayed in the #trac IRC channel entry message (*)

  /msg ChanServ topic #trac "The topic is: https://trac.edgewall.org/ | https://trac-hacks.org/ | Latest version - <version>."
  

• Update the ​Wikipedia page, and in particular the version numbers.

Prepare for development

• Uncomment tag_build setting in setup.cfg​.
• Update version number in setup.py​, trac/wiki/default-pages/WikiStart​, and trac/__init__.py​.
• Create a release coordination ticket with keyword ​release. The Clone button can be used on the previous release coordination ticket to pre-populate the fields.
• Update the Current target releases.
• For major releases, update the RoadMap and add a report Active Tickets for 1.x (e.g. {42}).

(*) not for beta or rc releases

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See also: ReleaseTesting, RoadMap, TracDev