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Release checklist

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Jean-Noël Grad edited this page Feb 26, 2026 · 5 revisions

Create the release candidate:

  • Create a new branch in a fork of the espressomd/espresso repository
  • Cherry-pick commits with git cherry-pick <commit> and pull requests with git cherry-pick -m 1 <branch>
  • Open a draft PR of the release candidate against the python branch (major or minor release) or against the corresponding minor branch (bugfix release)

May change repository

For new-features releases:

  • Update CI containers to recent version of libs and distributions
    • There should be CI for a current and a previous or LTS release
    • Still older distribution releases can be removed from CI
    • There should be containers for the current and previous CUDA version
  • Check Python modules version in /requirements.txt
  • Check CMake version in /CMakeLists.txt
  • Check contributors in /AUTHORS
    • Relevant script: /maintainer/find_potentially_missing_authors.sh
    • The result has to be checked manually, since some people commit using different names/addresses
    • With a mailmap, you can simply do git shortlog -se 4.1.2..4.1.3rc
    • Update names of core developers if applicable

For all releases

  • Update /CHANGELOG.md file to include release notes for current release
  • Spell and grammar check comments and docs
  • Check and fix copyright headers
  • Run CI jobs that are set to manual
  • Push the release
    • Fetch the release candidate
    • Update version number X.Y.Z in /CMakeLists.txt
    • Push to the relevant branch
    • In the CI of that branch, run all jobs
    • Workflow:
      • Major release: push to new branch "X.0" 
        git checkout -b 4.0 4.0rc
vi CMakeLists.txt
git add CMakeLists.txt
git commit -S -m 'Update version number to 4.0'
git verify-commit HEAD
git push upstream 4.0
      • Minor release: push to new branch "X.Y" 
        git checkout -b 4.1 4.1rc
vi CMakeLists.txt
git add CMakeLists.txt
git commit -S -m 'Update version number to 4.1'
git verify-commit HEAD
git push upstream 4.1
      • Bugfix release: push to old branch "X.Y" 
        git checkout 4.1.2rc
vi CMakeLists.txt
git add CMakeLists.txt
git commit -S -m 'Update version number to 4.1.2'
git verify-commit HEAD
git fetch upstream 4.1
git push upstream 4.1.2rc:4.1
    • Relevant thread: #2585

No changes after this

  • Publish release using Draft a new release
  • Deploy static documentation to the website
    • In a local fork of espressomd/espressomd.github.io, do: 
      release=5.0.0
git checkout landing_page
sed -i -r "s/latest_release: [0-9\.]+/latest_release: ${release}/" metadata.yml
git add metadata.yml
git commit -m "Update to release ${release}"
unzip artifacts-sphinx.zip
unzip artifacts-tutorials.zip
mv build/doc/sphinx/html/ doc${release}
rm doc${release}/.buildinfo
echo -e '\n/* hide todo notes */\ndiv.admonition-todo {\n    display: none;\n}' >> doc${release}/_static/custom.css
mv build/doc/tutorials/html/ tutorials${release}
make tutorials.md
mv tutorials.md tutorials${release}.md
rm -r build
git checkout releases
git add doc${release} tutorials${release}.md tutorials${release}
git commit -m "Add ${release} user guide and tutorials"
git push origin releases:releases
git push origin landing_page:landing_page
  • Close the corresponding milestone (milestones)
  • Update website using the CMS
  • Post release notes to the users mailing list ([email protected])
  • Update the python branch
    • Port improvements from the release into the python branch: release notes, grammar/spell checking, new authors, etc.
    • Update version number from X.Y.Z to X.Y+1.0 in /CMakeLists.txt

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