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Making Releases

Overview

Releases in the voc4cat repository publish versioned snapshots of the vocabulary and documentation to permanent URLs following the pattern https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/vYYYY-MM-DD. The release process is automated via GitHub Actions, triggered by pushing a tag with the version pattern.

The voc4cat version tags reflect the date when a release is created. Tags must follow the pattern vYYYY-MM-DD:

  • v2025-05-22 ✓ Correct
  • 2025-05-22 ✗ Wrong (missing 'v' prefix)
  • v20250522 ✗ Wrong (missing hyphens)

Prerequisites

Before creating a release, ensure:

  1. All vocabulary changes have been merged to the main branch
  2. The development version (/dev/) has been rebuilt and is accessible at https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/dev
  3. You have tested the development documentation to verify correctness
  4. You have commit/push rights to the repository

Release Process

Step 1: Create Feature Branch

Navigate to your local clone of the voc4cat repository. Make sure you are on the main branch and have the latest changes:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat
λ git switch main
λ git pull

Create a feature branch for the release preparation:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(main -> origin)
λ git switch -c release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD
Switched to a new branch 'release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD'

Step 2: Update Contributor Information (if needed)

If there are new contributors since the last release, update the .zenodo.json file to include them. This ensures proper attribution when the release is archived on Zenodo.

  1. Check for new contributors by reviewing recent commit history and pull requests
  2. For each new contributor, add an entry to the creators array in .zenodo.json: 
    {
  "name": "LastName, FirstName",
  "orcid": "0000-0000-0000-0000",
  "affiliation": "Institution Name"
}
  3. Ensure contributors are listed in the order they should appear on Zenodo
  4. Use the affiliation format as shown on the contributor's ORCID profile or their institution's ROR records

Step 3: Update Release Information in Documentation

Update the following files in the docs/ folder:

  1. The announcement banner (in docs/conf.py):

    "announcement": 'New: <strong> Release YYYY-MM-DD </strong> includes ...',

  2. The latest release reference (in docs/index.md):

    +++
<small>Latest release **vYYYY-MM-DD**</small>

  3. Add the new release to the "All releases" section (in docs/index.md):

    - **vYYYY-MM-DD**: [Documentation (HTML)](https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/vYYYY-MM-DD), permanent url `https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/vYYYY-MM-DD`

Step 4: Create and Merge Pull Request

Commit and push your documentation changes:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD)
λ git add docs/index.md docs/conf.py .zenodo.json

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD)
λ git commit -m "Prepare documentation for vYYYY-MM-DD release"

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD)
λ git push --set-upstream origin release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD

Create a pull request on GitHub and get the PR reviewed and approved by another maintainer.

Then merge it to main. After merging, delete the feature branch on GitHub.

Step 5: Pull Updated Main Branch

Switch back to main and pull the merged changes:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD)
λ git switch main
Switched to branch 'main'

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(main -> origin)
λ git pull

Clean up the local feature branch:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(main -> origin)
λ git branch -d release-prep-vYYYY-MM-DD

Step 6: Create and Push Release Tag

Create an annotated tag following the pattern vYYYY-MM-DD (e.g., v2025-05-22):

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(main -> origin)
λ git tag -a v2025-05-22 -m "Release v2025-05-22"

Push the tag to GitHub:

C:\Users\dlinke\MyProg_local\gh-nfdi4cat\voc4cat(main -> origin)
λ git push --tags
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 170 bytes | 164.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
To https://github.com/nfdi4cat/voc4cat.git
 * [new tag]         v2025-05-22 -> v2025-05-22

Step 7: Monitor Automated Publish Workflow

The push of a tag matching v[0-9]+-[0-9]+-[0-9]+ triggers the .github/workflows/publish.yml workflow automatically. This workflow:

  1. Checks out the tagged commit and the gh-pages branch
  2. Builds the joined vocabulary file from individual Turtle files
  3. Generates pyLODE documentation (HTML)
  4. Creates Excel and XML/RDF files from the vocabulary
  5. Builds the Sphinx documentation site
  6. Copies all outputs to both publish/latest/ and publish/vYYYY-MM-DD/ directories
  7. Publishes everything to the gh-pages branch

Monitor the workflow:

  1. Navigate to https://github.com/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/actions
  2. Look for the "Publish" workflow run triggered by your tag
  3. Wait for completion (typically 5-10 minutes)
  4. Check for any errors in the workflow logs
If the publish workflow fails, the release is incomplete. Check the workflow logs and fix any issues. You may need to delete the tag, fix the problem, and retry.

To delete a tag and retry:

git tag -d vYYYY-MM-DD  # delete local tag
git push --delete origin vYYYY-MM-DD  # delete remote tag

Step 8: Create GitHub Release

Once the publish workflow completes successfully, create a GitHub Release from the tag:

  1. Navigate to https://github.com/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/releases
  2. Click "Draft a new release"
  3. Click "Choose a tag" and select your version tag (e.g., v2025-05-22)
  4. Set a release title that matches the tag (e.g., Release 2025-05-22)
  5. In the release notes, summarize the changes included in the new release. Follow the style of the previous release notes.
  6. Check "Set as the latest release"
  7. Click "Publish release"

Step 9: Verify Release

After publishing, verify the release is accessible:

  1. Check the permanent URL: https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat/vYYYY-MM-DD
  2. Verify the latest release redirects: https://w3id.org/nfdi4cat/voc4cat
  3. Check the Sphinx documentation site includes the new release
  4. Download and verify the Excel file from https://nfdi4cat.github.io/voc4cat/vYYYY-MM-DD/voc4cat.xlsx

Release Artifacts

Each release publishes the following artifacts to the gh-pages branch under both latest/ and vYYYY-MM-DD/ directories:

Artifact Description
index.html pyLODE-generated HTML documentation of the vocabulary
voc4cat.ttl Joined Turtle/SKOS file containing the complete vocabulary
voc4cat.xml RDF/XML format of the vocabulary
voc4cat.xlsx Excel file generated from the vocabulary (for contributors)
voc4cat/ Directory with individual Turtle files (one per concept/collection)
voc4cat.log Log file from voc4cat-tool operations

The Sphinx documentation site is published to the root of gh-pages.

Troubleshooting

Yanking a Release

If a release is published with critical errors:

  1. Mark it as "Pre-release" or delete it in the GitHub Releases UI
  2. Add an entry to the "Yanked releases" section in docs/index.md
  3. Create a new corrected release with an incremented date