zcash-patched-for-explorer/doc/release-process.md

Release Process

Meta: There should always be a single release engineer to disambiguate responsibility.

A. Define the release version as:

$ ZCASH_RELEASE=${UPSTREAM_VERSION}.z${ZCASH_RELEASE_COUNTER}

Example:

$ ZCASH_RELEASE=0.11.2.z2

Also, the following commands use the ZCASH_RELEASE_PREV bash variable for the previous release:

$ ZCASH_RELEASE_PREV=0.11.2.z1

B. create a new release branch / github PR

B1. update (commit) version in sources

doc/README.md

In clientversion.h change CLIENT_VERSION_IS_RELEASE to false while Zcash is in alpha-test phase.

B2. write release notes

git shortlog helps a lot, for example:

$ git shortlog --no-merges v${ZCASH_RELEASE_PREV}..HEAD \
    > ./doc/release-notes/release-notes-${ZCASH_RELEASE}.md

B3. merge the previous changes

Do the normal pull-request, review, testing process for this release PR.

C. Verify code artifact hosting

C1. Ensure depends tree is working

http://ci.leastauthority.com:8010/builders/depends-sources

C2. Ensure public parameters work

Run ./fetch-params.sh.

D. make tags / release-branch for the newly merged result

In this example, we ensure zc.v0.11.2.latest is up to date with the previous merged PR, then:

$ git tag v${ZCASH_RELEASE}
$ git branch zc.v${ZCASH_RELEASE}
$ git push origin v${ZCASH_RELEASE}
$ git push origin zc.v${ZCASH_RELEASE}

E. update github default branch to this new release branch

F. write / publish a release announcement

G. deploy testnet

H. write and publish appropriate announcements (blog, zcash-dev, slack)

I. celebrate

missing steps

Zcash still needs:

• deterministic build

• signatured tags

• thorough pre-release testing (presumably more thorough than standard PR tests)

• release deployment steps (eg: updating build-depends mirror, deploying testnet, etc...)

• proper zcash-specific versions and names in software and documentation.