reno/doc/source/usage.rst

Usage

Creating New Release Notes

The reno command line tool is used to create a new release note file in the correct format and with a unique name. The new subcommand combines a random suffix with a "slug" value to make the new file with a unique name that is easy to identify again later.

$ reno new slug-goes-here
Created new notes file in releasenotes/notes/slug-goes-here-95915aaedd3c48d8.yaml

Within OpenStack projects, reno is often run via tox instead of being installed globally. For example

$ tox -e venv -- reno new slug-goes-here
venv develop-inst-nodeps: /mnt/projects/release-notes-generation/reno
venv runtests: commands[0] | reno new slug-goes-here
Created new notes file in releasenotes/notes/slug-goes-here-95915aaedd3c48d8.yaml
  venv: commands succeeded
  congratulations :)
$ git status
Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

    releasenotes/notes/slug-goes-here-95915aaedd3c48d8.yaml

The --edit option enables to edit the note just after its creation.

$ reno new slug-goes-here --edit
... Open your editor (defined with EDITOR environment variable) ...
Created new notes file in releasenotes/notes/slug-goes-here-95915aaedd3c48d8.yaml

By default the new note is created under ./releasenotes/notes. Use the --rel-notes-dir to change the parent directory (the notes subdirectory is always appended). It's also possible to set a custom template to create notes (see Configuring Reno ).

Editing a Release Note

The note file is a YAML file with several sections. All of the text is interpreted as having reStructuredText formatting.

prelude

General comments about the release. The prelude from all notes in a section are combined, in note order, to produce a single prelude introducing that release.

features

A list of new major features in the release.

issues

A list of known issues in the release. For example, if a new driver is experimental or known to not work in some cases, it should be mentioned here.

upgrade

A list of upgrade notes in the release. For example, if a database schema alteration is needed.

deprecations

A list of features, APIs, configuration options to be deprecated in the release. Deprecations should not be used for something that is removed in the release, use upgrade section instead. Deprecation should allow time for users to make necessary changes for the removal to happen in a future release.

critical

A list of fixed critical bugs.

security

A list of fixed security issues.

fixes

A list of other fixed bugs.

other

Other notes that are important but do not fall into any of the given categories.

Any sections that would be blank should be left out of the note file entirely.

---
prelude: >
    Replace this text with content to appear at the
    top of the section for this release.
features:
  - List new features here, or remove this section.
issues:
  - List known issues here, or remove this section.
upgrade:
  - List upgrade notes here, or remove this section.
deprecations:
  - List deprecation notes here, or remove this section
critical:
  - Add critical notes here, or remove this section.
security:
  - Add security notes here, or remove this section.
fixes:
  - Add normal bug fixes here, or remove this section.
other:
  - Add other notes here, or remove this section.

Formatting

Release notes may include embedded reStructuredText, including simple inline markup like emphasis and pre-formatted text as well as complex body structures such as nested lists and tables. To use these formatting features, the note must be escaped from the YAML parser.

The default template sets up the prelude section to use > so that line breaks in the text are removed. This escaping mechanism is not needed for the bullet items in the other sections of the template.

To escape the text of any section and retain the newlines, prefix the value with |. For example:

See examples for the rendered version of the note.

Generating a Report

Run reno report <path-to-git-repository> to generate a report containing the release notes. The --branch argument can be used to generate a report for a specific branch (the default is the branch that is checked out). To limit the report to a subset of the available versions on the branch, use the --version option (it can be repeated).

Notes are output in the order they are found by git log looking over the history of the branch. This is deterministic, but not necessarily predictable or mutable.

Configuring Reno

Reno looks for an optional config.yml file in your release notes directory. This file may contain optional flags that you might use with a command. If the values do not apply to the command, they are ignored in the configuration file. For example, a couple reno commands allow you to specify

• --branch
• --earliest-version
• --collapse-pre-releases/--no-collapse-pre-releases
• --ignore-cache
• --stop-at-branch-base/--no-stop-at-branch-base

So you might write a config file (if you use these often) like:

---
branch: master
earliest_version: 12.0.0
collapse_pre_releases: false
stop_at_branch_base: true
template: |
          <template-used-to-create-new-notes>
          ...

These will be parsed first and then the CLI options will be applied after the config files.

Debugging

The way release notes are included into sphinx documents may mask where formatting errors occur. To generate the release notes manually, so that they can be put into a sphinx document directly for debugging, run:

$ reno report .

Within OpenStack

The OpenStack project maintains separate instructions for configuring the CI jobs and other project-specific settings used for reno. Refer to the Managing Release Notes section of the Project Team Guide for details.