Release checklist #

When the release managers for version X.X get nominated #

• Create a new issue to track the release process where you can copy-paste the present checklist from dev/doc/release-process.md (we recommend duplicating the "For each release" section for X.Y+rc1 and for X.Y.0, removing the useless entries in each copy).
• Decide the release calendar with the team (date of branching, preview and final release).
• Create a wiki page that you link to from https://github.com/rocq-prover/rocq/wiki/Release-Plan with this information and the link to the issue.

About one month before the branching date #

• Create both the upcoming final release (X.X.0) and the following major release (Y.Y+rc1) milestones if they do not already exist.
• Send an announcement of the upcoming branching date on the Rocq development category on Discourse (rocq+rocq-development@discoursemail.com) and ask people to remove from the X.X+rc1 milestone any feature and clean up PRs that they already know won't be ready on time.
• Prepare a PR on master (not yet to be merged) changing the version to the next minor version in tools/configure/configure.ml. For example, for 9.3, minor will be 3. On master the patch value is always Alpha, so rocq -version will print 9.3+alpha and the magic number will be 90299 (the release magic will be 90300 so we take the first number before that). This PR should be opened before the branching date to have time to deal with CI issues, but should not be merged until branching.

On the branching date #

• Merge the above PR and create the vX.X branch from the last merge commit before this one (using this name will ensure that the branch will be automatically protected).
• Set the next major version alpha tag using git tag -s (you can leave the tag message empty). The VY.Y+alpha tag marks the first commit to be in master and not in the vX.X release branch (be careful about small v for branches and big V for tags). Note that this commit is the first commit in the first PR merged in master, not the merge commit for that PR. Therefore, if you proceeded as described above, this should be the commit updating the version and magic numbers. After tagging, double-check that git describe picks up the tag you just made (if not, you tagged the wrong commit).
• Push the new tag with git push upstream VY.Y+alpha --dry-run (remove the --dry-run and redo if everything looks OK).
• In the milestone, add to the description a line like @coqbot: backport to v9.2 (move rejected PRs to: https://github.com/coq/coq/milestone/69)
• If there are still milestones open for previous major releases, complete their description so that the pull requests that are merged in these milestones are also requested for backporting to the new branch. For instance: @coqbot: backport to v9.1 (move rejected PRs to: https://github.com/rocq-prover/rocq/milestone/66); backport to v9.2 (move rejected PRs to: https://github.com/coq/coq/milestone/69) (use as many ; separated instructions as needed)
• Monitor the Release management project in which coqbot will keep track of PRs to be backported (according to the previous command) The release manager is the person responsible for merging PRs that target the release branch and backporting appropriate PRs (mostly safe bug fixes, user message improvements and documentation updates) that are merged into master.
• For major releases, you can create new views in the above project by using the "Duplicate view" button in the menu of the views from the previous major release. After duplicating the view, you can edit the filter to match the field for the new branch, update the fields displayed, rename the view, and "save", so that the view is shared with everyone. This is best done after the first PR requiring backporting has been merged, because the new field will have been created by coqbot at that point.
• Pin the versions of libraries and plugins in dev/ci/ci-basic-overlay.sh to use commit hashes. You can use the dev/tools/pin-ci.sh script to do this semi-automatically.
• In a PR on master to be backported, add a new link to the 'versions' list of the refman (in html_context in doc/sphinx/conf.py). At the same time, update the links of previous versions that were targeting branches to target a tag instead if the latest patch-level release is out.
• Add {rocq-runtime,coq-core,rocq-core,rocqide-server}.X.X.dev packages in core-dev
• Ensure a rocq-stdlib package compatible with the new packages above exists either in ocaml repo or in core-dev
• Add coq.X.X.dev package in core-dev
• Ping @erikmd and @Zimmi48 to set up the infrastructure to have alpha Docker images built for the branch: the main steps amount to release coq-bignums v9.Y.Y+coqX.X in extra-dev, prepare a new Docker-Rocq image rocq/rocq-prover:X.X-alpha, then browse https://gitlab.inria.fr/coq/coq/-/hooks to copy the dev webhook into a new vX.X webhook: https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/19687072/trigger/pipeline?ref=master&variables[CRON_MODE]=rebuild-keyword&variables[ITEM]=X.X&token=_, Push events → Wildcard pattern → vX.X, Test Push events. (If need be, the token can be regenerated at https://gitlab.com/rocq-community/docker-rocq/-/settings/ci_cd.)

In the days following the branching #

• Make sure that all the last feature PRs that you want to include in the release are finished and backported quickly and clean up the milestone. We recommend backporting as few feature PRs as possible after branching. In particular, any PR with overlays will require manually bumping the pinned commits when backporting.
• Delay non-blocking issues to the appropriate milestone and ensure blocking issues are solved. If required to solve some blocking issues, it is possible to revert some feature PRs in the release branch only (but in this case, the blocking issue should be postponed to the next major release instead of being closed).
• Once the final list of features is known, in a PR on master to be backported, generate the release changelog by calling dev/tools/generate-release-changelog.sh and include it in a new section in doc/sphinx/changes.rst. The script automatically reorders the entries to show first the Changed, then the Removed, Deprecated, Added and last the Fixed. Manual adjustement is still needed when multiple entries are combined in a single changelog file.
• Start a draft release summary taking inspiration from the previous one. The dev/tools/list-contributors.sh script computes the number and list of contributors between Rocq revisions. Typically used with VX.X+alpha..vX.X to check the contributors of version VX.X. Note that this script relies on .mailmap to merge multiple identities. If you notice anything incorrect while using it, use the opportunity to fix the .mailmap file. Same thing if you want to have the full name of a contributor shown instead of a pseudonym. Be sure the PR is not draft for better visibility and ask everyone in the dev team to contribute the main features and breaking changes sections before the final release.
• Put the branch name in the CACHEKEY variables in .gitlab-ci.yml (for instance old_ubuntu_lts-V2022-05-20-c34331afa5 to "old_ubuntu_lts-v8.16-V2022-05-20-c34331afa5) to indicate that it shouldn't be cleaned up even once it gets old. This should be done after all PRs touching the CACHEKEY variables have been merged.

For each release (preview, final, patch-level, copy-paste for each) #

• Ensure that there exists a milestone for the following version (both major and minor versions like X.Y.1).
• When doing so, add the new milestone to the coqbot command in the description of still-open previous milestones. For instance, when creating a milestone 8.20.1, if there is an open milestone 8.19.3, something tagged with the milestone 8.19.3 means: to be backported to the v8.19 and the v8.20 branches. The coqbot syntax is @coqbot: backport to v8.19 (move rejected PRs to: <url of current milestone for 8.20>); backport to v8.20 (move rejected PRs to: <URL of current milestone for 8.21>); ....
• Ensure the release changelog has been merged (for release candidates the release summary can be left empty, it is required only for the final release).
• In a PR against vX.X (for testing):
  • Update the patch version number in tools/configure/configure.ml.
  • Only update the magic numbers for the final release.
  • Set is_a_released_version to true.
• Set the tag VX.X... using git tag -s.
• Push the new tag with git push upstream VX.X... --dry-run (remove the --dry-run and redo if everything looks OK).
• Set is_a_released_version to false (if you forget about it, you'll be reminded by the test-suite failing whenever you try to backport a PR with a changelog entry).
• Close the milestone.
• Publish a release on GitHub with the PDF version of the reference manual attached. The PDF can be recovered from the artifacts of the doc:ci-refman job from continuous integration. Also attach a tar.gz archive of the sources (to ensure a stable hash, you can copy the archive autogenerated by github when the release is published).
• Ping @rocq-prover/packaging to request Nix and opam packages (either in the main ocaml/opam-repository for standard releases or in the core-dev category of the rocq-prover/opam for preview releases).
• If pinged by opam package providers in pull requests to ocaml/opam-repository, transfer any changes to opam packages (*.opam files) required by opam-repository CI (such as missing dependencies) to the corresponding package definitions in the Rocq repository.
• Cc @proux01 to ensure that a coq-bignums opam package is available in extra-dev or released, respectively.
• Cc @erikmd to ensure that the necessary configuration is ready to release the Docker images in rocq/rocq-prover (gathering rocq-prover and coq-bignums opam packages).
• For X.Y+rc1, once opam and Nix packages are ready (and ideally Docker images), send an e-mail on the Rocq announcement category on Discourse (rocq+announcements@discoursemail.com) announcing that the RC is out so that package maintainers can start preparing package updates and library authors can safely start preparing compatible releases.
• For X.Y.0, once opam and Nix packages are ready (and ideally Docker images), announce the release to Discourse (rocq+announcements@discoursemail.com).

For each non-preview release #

• Ping @rocq-prover/website-maintainers to update the website.

Only for the final release of each major version #

• Ping @rocq-prover/zenodo-maintainers to publish a new version on Zenodo. Process:
  1. Go to the Zenodo Rocq Prover community and click on the existing "Rocq Prover" record.
  2. Click on "New version".
  3. Click on "Upload files" and upload the PDF manual and the source tarball, copied from the GitHub release.
  4. Select the manual as the default preview.
  5. Enter the release date as publication date.
  6. Replace the release summary in the description with the one from the https://rocq-prover.org/refman/changes.html page for the current release (copy-pasting from the HTML page to the rich text editor works, except that bullet-point lists appear as quoted text, which you can fix easily in the rich text editor). Note that the first paragraph of the description is not the release summary but the general description of Rocq, which should not change from one release to another.
  7. Change the "Project manager" to the current release manager, and update the project members to match the current maintainers if necessary.
  8. Add the (major) version number.
  9. Update the link to the release on GitHub (in the related works section).
  10. Click "Publish".