This is a list of the things that need to happen during a release. We support three kinds of releases:
- A standard release, from
main
(i.e. v0.27.0, v0.28.3, v1.5.2, etc.) - A release candidate release, from
main
(i.e. v0.27.0-rc.0, v1.5.3-rc.3, etc.) - A pre-release release, from any branch (i.e. v0.26.0-PR1234, v0.27.4-my.build.0)
N.B All the version numbers above follow Semantic Versioning, and specifically its notion of encoding pre-release information after the -
for more information see the Semantic Versioning specification
As noted above, a standard release takes the form of a tagged commit on the main
branch, and includes all
commits previous to it. Preparing it involves several phases:
-
Open the associated milestone, it should be called
vNext
. -
Rename the milestone to the version you are currently releasing and set the date to today
-
Create a new empty
vNext
milestone -
If there are any open issues/PRs in the milestone for the current release, move them to the new
vNext
milestone. -
Go through the commit history since the last release. Ensure that all merged PRs, are marked with the milestone. The searches below may be helpful when performing this task
- This search lists PRs merged before a specific date, update this to the day after the last release to make sure nothing is missed
- This search lists PRs merged before a specific date that do not have a milestone attached.
- Note: If a PR is merged and then reverted before the release there's no need to include both PRs in the CHANGELOG.
-
Go through the closed PRs in the milestone. Each should have a changelog label indicating if the change is documentation, feature, fix, or maintenance. If there is a missing label, please add one. If it is a breaking change, also add a BREAKING label.
-
Add this release to the
CHANGELOG.md
. Use the structure of previous entries. An example entry looks like this:-
Fixes Input Value Definition block string encoding for descriptions - @lrlna, #1116 fixes #1088
Input values are now multilined when a description is present to allow for a more readable generated SDL.
As you can see, there is a brief description, followed by the author's GitHub handle, the PR number and the issue number. If there is no issue associated with a PR, just put the PR number.
-
- Make sure you have both
npm
,cargo
andgraphql_client_cli
installed on your machine and in yourPATH
. - Create a new branch "#.#.#" where "#.#.#" is this release's version
- Update the version in
./Cargo.toml
, workspace crates likerover-client
should remain untouched. - Update the installer versions in
docs/source/getting-started.mdx
anddocs/source/ci-cd.mdx
. (eventually this should be automated). - Run
cargo run -- help
and copy the output to the "Command-line Options" section inREADME.md
. - Run
cargo xtask prep
(this will requirenpm
to be installed). - Push up all of your local changes. The commit message should be "release: v#.#.#"
- Open a Pull Request from the branch you pushed.
- Add the release pull request to the milestone you opened.
- Paste the changelog entry into the description of the Pull Request.
- Add the "🚢release" label to the PR.
- Get the PR reviewed
- If this necessitates making changes, squash or fixup all changes into a single commit. Use the
Squash and Merge
GitHub button.
- If this necessitates making changes, squash or fixup all changes into a single commit. Use the
This part of the release process is handled by CircleCI, and our binaries are distributed as GitHub Releases. When you push a version tag, it kicks off a workflow that checks out the tag, builds release binaries for multiple platforms, and creates a new GitHub release for that tag.
- Have your PR merged to
main
. - Once merged, run
git checkout main
andgit pull
. - Sync your local tags with the remote tags by running
git tag -d $(git tag) && git fetch --tags
- Tag the commit by running either
git tag -a v#.#.# -m "#.#.#"
- Run
git push --tags
. - Wait for CI to pass.
- Watch the release show up on the releases page
- Click
Edit
, paste the release notes from the changelog, and save the changes to the release.
- Run
npm dist-tag ls @apollo/rover
and check the version listed next to latest is the expected one - Head to the Rover Documentation and install the latest version on your machine
- Run some commands against that version to ensure the binary runs
These are releases that usually proceed a standard release as a way of getting features to customers faster
- Make sure you have both
npm
,cargo
andgraphql_client_cli
installed on your machine and in yourPATH
. - Create a new branch "#.#.#-rc.#" where "#.#.#" is this release's version, and the final
#
is the number of the release candidate (this starts at 0 and increments by 1 for each subsequent release candidate) - Update the version in
./Cargo.toml
, workspace crates likerover-client
should remain untouched. - Update the installer versions in
docs/source/getting-started.mdx
anddocs/source/ci-cd.mdx
. (eventually this should be automated). - Run
cargo run -- help
and copy the output to the "Command-line Options" section inREADME.md
. - Run
cargo xtask prep
(this will requirenpm
to be installed). - Push up all of your local changes. The commit message should be "release: v#.#.#-rc.#"
- Open a Pull Request from the branch you pushed. The description for this PR should include the salient changes in this release candidate, and what testing should be applied to it.
- Paste the changelog entry into the description of the Pull Request.
- Add the "🚢release" label to the PR.
- Get the PR reviewed
- If this necessitates making changes, squash or fixup all changes into a single commit. Use the
Squash and Merge
GitHub button.
- If this necessitates making changes, squash or fixup all changes into a single commit. Use the
This part of the release process is handled by CircleCI, and our binaries are distributed as GitHub Releases. When you push a version tag, it kicks off a workflow that checks out the tag, builds release binaries for multiple platforms, and creates a new GitHub release for that tag.
-
Have your PR merged to
main
. -
Once merged, run
git checkout main
andgit pull
. -
Sync your local tags with the remote tags by running
git tag -d $(git tag) && git fetch --tags
-
Tag the commit by running either
git tag -a v#.#.#-rc.# -m "#.#.#-rc.#"
-
Run
git push --tags
. -
Wait for CI to pass.
-
Watch the release show up on the releases page
-
CI should already mark the release as a
pre-release
. Double check that it's listed as a pre-release on the release'sEdit
page. -
If this is a new rc (rc.0), paste testing instructions into the release notes.
-
If this is a rc.1 or later, the old release candidate testing instructions should be moved to the latest release candidate testing instructions, and replaced with the following message:
This beta release is now out of date. If you previously installed this release, you should reinstall and see what's changed in the latest [release](https://github.com/apollographql/rover/releases).
The new release candidate should then include updated testing instructions with a small changelog at the top to get folks who installed the old release candidate up to speed.
- Run
npm dist-tag ls @apollo/rover
and check the version listed next to beta is the expected one, and thatlatest
matches that which is marked aslatest
in GitHub. - Head to the Rover Documentation and install the latest version on your machine
- Run some commands against that version to ensure the binary runs
Sometimes it's necessary to create a rover
release from an arbitrary branch, this mostly happens in the situation where we want to quickly iterate on a customer fix.
- Make sure you have both
npm
,cargo
andgraphql_client_cli
installed on your machine and in yourPATH
. - Create a new branch
#.#.#-<<IDENTIFIER>>
where "#.#.#" is this release's version.IDENTIFIER
can be any series of valid Semver identifiers separated by dots
- Update the version in
./Cargo.toml
, workspace crates likerover-client
should remain untouched. - Run
cargo xtask prep
(this will requirenpm
to be installed). - Push up all of your local changes.
This part of the release process is handled by CircleCI, and our binaries are distributed as GitHub Releases. When you push a version tag, it kicks off a workflow that checks out the tag, builds release binaries for multiple platforms, and creates a new GitHub release for that tag.
- Once merged, run
git checkout <<YOUR_BRANCH>>
andgit pull
. - Sync your local tags with the remote tags by running
git tag -d $(git tag) && git fetch --tags
- Tag the commit by running either
git tag -a v#.#.#-<<IDENTIFIER>> -m "#.#.#-<<IDENTIFIER>>"
- Run
git push --tags
. - Wait for CI to pass.
- Watch the release show up on the releases page
- CI should already mark the release as a
pre-release
. Double check that it's listed as a pre-release on the release'sEdit
page.
- Head to the Rover Documentation and install the newly published version on your machine
- Run some commands against that version to ensure the binary runs
- If you intend to publish more builds you can leave your branch as-is, however if you have finished, ensure the branch is deleted.
Mistakes happen. Most of these release steps are recoverable if you mess up.
That's OK! In this scenario, do the following.
- Try re-running the job, see if it fixes itself
- If it doesn't, try re-running it with SSH and poke around, see if you can identify the issue
- Delete the tag either in the GitHub UI or by running
git push --delete origin vX.X.X
- Make a PR to fix the issue in
.circleci/config.yml
- Merge the PR
- Go back to the "Tag and build release" section and re-tag the release. If it fails again, that's OK, you can keep trying until it succeeds.
Tags and releases can be removed in GitHub. First, remove the remote tag:
git push --delete origin vX.X.X
This will turn the release into a draft
and you can delete it from the edit page.
Make sure you also delete the local tag:
git tag --delete vX.X.X
In this case, you should yank the version so npm packages and packages downloading from rover.apollo.dev/{platform}/latest
are not affected.
- Follow the same steps as above to delete the release and the tag.
- Run
npm unpublish @apollo/[email protected]
In this case you need to do two things
- Go to the releases page on GitHub, find your release:
- Uncheck
Set as the latest release
- Check
Set as a pre-release
- Uncheck
- This will restore
latest
to point to the previous latest release (which should be a stable version) - Note down the version that
latest
is point to in GitHub - Fix the settings in
npm
by running the following commandnpm dist-tag add @apollo/rover@<<VERSION_NUMBER_FROM_STEP_3>> latest
- Run the following command to verify your changes:
npm dist-tag list @apollo/rover
- It should respond as follows:
beta: <<PRE_RELEASE_VERSION>> latest: <<VERSION_NUMBER_FROM_STEP_3>>