cosmos-sdk/docs/RELEASE_PROCESS.md

cosmos/cosmos-sdk Release Process

• 1. Decide on release designation (are we doing a patch, or minor version bump) and start a branch for the release
• 2. Add commits/PRs that are desired for this release that haven’t already been added to develop
• 3. Merge items in PENDING.md into the CHANGELOG.md. While doing this make sure that each entry contains links to issues/PRs for each item
• 4. Summarize breaking API changes section under “Breaking Changes” section to the CHANGELOG.md to bring attention to any breaking API changes that affect RPC consumers.
• 5. Tag the commit git tag -a { .Release.Name }-rcN -m 'Release { .Release.Name }'
• 6. Open PRs for both master and develop. From now onwards *no additional PRs targeting develop should be merged. Additional commits can be added on top of the release branch though.
• 7. Ensure both master and develop PRs pass tests.
• 8. Kick off 1 day of automated fuzz testing
• 9. Release Lead assigns 2 people to perform buddy testing script and update the relevant documentation
• 10. If errors are found in either #6 or #7 go back to #2 (NOTE: be sure to increment the rcN)
• 11. After #6 and #7 have successfully completed then merge the release PR create the final release annotated tag:
• `git tag -a -m { .Release.Name } 'Release { .Release.Name }'
• Merge the release tag to both master and develop so that both branches sit on top of the same commit: branches='master develop' ; for b in $branches ; do git checkout $b ; git merge { .Release.Name } ; git push $b. Alternatively merge both the aforementioned release PRs.
• Push the final annotated release tag: git push --tags