releases/CONTRIBUTING.rst

Release management contribution ladder

Getting involved with release management can feel a bit overwhelming. To set expectations reasonably, we define 4 levels of engagement.

Stage 0 - Review release requests

This stage does not require any special rights. You should just review release requests (modifications of files in deliverables/ directory in the releases repository), apply the release review rules and vote.

Release review guidelines

Three test jobs run for every release request:

• openstack-tox-validate checks for proper yaml format and schema validation and checks for things like proper job types and valid release note links
• releases-tox-list-changes finds included commits, lists PTL and release liaison, requirements changes, and open reviews for docs and release notes
• build-openstack-sphinx-docs performs a build of the releases website and checks for errors.

You should:

• check that the version bump matches semver rules. In particular, a .Z bump means only bugfixes should be listed in list-changes.
• check the output of the test jobs.
• Place your vote based on whether you think the request should be accepted as-is or not.

Stage 1 - Approving release requests

At this stage you will be trusted with CodeReview+2 and Workflow+1 votes on the releases repository, giving you the ability to trigger releases. You will need a base understanding of the release machinery, and know to refrain from approving when unsure.

Release infrastructure primer

What happens when a release is approved? Release infrastructure is divided into two steps, triggered by different, but related events.

The first step is triggered by the release request being merged into the releases repository, starting a series of jobs in the "post" pipeline of the releases repository:

Release request merged

+-------v-----------------------+ Post pipeline (releases repo) +---+-----------------------+---+ | | v v

+-------+-------+ +-------+-------+ | tag | | publish-docs | | | | | | (pushes tags | | (to releases | | to each repo) | | website) | | | | | +-------+-------+ +---------------+

The second step is triggered by the creation of the tag, creating a series of jobs in the "tag" pipeline and the "release" pipeline (or "pre-release" pipeline, in case of beta versions) of the repository the tag landed in:

Tag is created ----------------------------------------------- | |

+----v------------------------------------+ +----------v-----------+

Release pipeline (each repo) Tag pipeline (each repo)

+----+---------------+---------------+----+ +----------------------+

              | | |

v v v v

+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+-----+ | release | | announce | | propose | | publish | | | | | | release | | (sends | | update | | notes | | tarball | | email) | | | | | | & uploads | | | +-----------+ +-----------+ | it) | +-----------+ +-----------+

Note that a single release request can create multiple tags in different repositories, triggering that second stage in multiple repositories.

Jobs in the release pipeline need information from the release request (like series name, or whether to upload to pypi). We use metadata in the git tag itself to pass that information: the "tag" job in step 1 records the information in the tag, and the jobs in step 2 retrieve that information directly from the tag.

Checklist before approving a release

• You should only approve release requests.
• You should check that release is approved by PTL or release liaison
• You should check that infrastructure is not currently experiencing issues
• You should check that we are not in any freeze period
• If unsure, it is better to wait for a second opinion that to press Workflow+1 directly.

Stage 2 - Knowing the release cycle process

At this stage you will be able to help drive the release cycle process, send reminder emails and answer questions from release liaisons.

Stage 3 - Understanding the Release Automation Infrastructure

At this stage you will be able to debug complex release infrastructure failures, and review/approve release tooling changes.