Skip to content

Add Documentation/release-process.md #2394

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
pgonin wants to merge 1 commit into
base: master
Choose a base branch
from
Open

Add Documentation/release-process.md #2394

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
50 changes: 50 additions & 0 deletions Documentation/release-process.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
# Release Process

This document describes how Flannel releases are created and published.

## Versioning

Flannel follows [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/):

- **Patch releases** (e.g., `v0.27.1 → v0.27.2`): Bug fixes and dependency updates. No breaking changes.
- **Minor releases** (e.g., `v0.26.x → v0.27.0`): New features, significant changes. May include minor breaking changes.

Flannel aims for approximately monthly releases, with patch releases issued as needed for important bug fixes or CVEs.

## Release Steps

1. **Prepare the release:** Ensure all intended pull requests are merged and the main branch CI is passing.

@thomasferrandiz thomasferrandiz Mar 30, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Here we also need a dedicated PR to update all the manifests so that they point to the new release.

2. **Create a GitHub Release:**
- Navigate to the [Releases page](https://github.com/flannel-io/flannel/releases) on GitHub.
- Click "Draft a new release".
- Create a new tag in the format `vX.Y.Z`.
- Write release notes summarizing changes (new features, bug fixes, dependency updates, breaking changes if any).
- Publish the release.

3. **Automated CI/CD:** Publishing a release triggers the [release GitHub Actions workflow](.github/workflows/release.yml), which automatically:
- Builds multi-arch binaries for `amd64`, `arm`, `arm64`, `s390x`, `ppc64le`, and `riscv64`.
- Builds and pushes multi-arch container images to [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/flannel/flannel) and [GitHub Container Registry](https://ghcr.io/flannel-io/flannel).
- Uploads binary artifacts (`flannel-*`) to the GitHub Release page.
- Packages the Helm chart and `kube-flannel.yml` manifest and uploads them to the GitHub Release page.
- Deploys the updated Helm chart to [GitHub Pages](https://flannel-io.github.io/flannel).
- Generates build provenance attestations for container images.

## Release Artifacts

Each release publishes:

| Artifact | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| `flannel-<arch>` | Compiled `flanneld` binaries for each supported architecture |
| `kube-flannel.yml` | Kubernetes manifest for deploying Flannel |
| `flannel.tgz` | Helm chart package |
| Container images | Multi-arch images on Docker Hub and GHCR |

## Supported Architectures

`linux/amd64`, `linux/arm64`, `linux/arm`, `linux/s390x`, `linux/ppc64le`, `linux/riscv64`

## Security Releases

For releases addressing security vulnerabilities, the [SECURITY.md](../SECURITY.md) coordinated disclosure process is followed. Security releases are prioritized and may be issued outside the regular cadence.
Loading