Issuing Releases

Last Updated: December 15, 2015

This article provides an overview of the procedure that should be followed to issue new releases of Tethys Platform.

1. Freeze the Dev Branch as a Release Candidate

After all tasks for a release have been completed, create a new release candidate branch from the dev branch following this naming convention: "X.X.0-rc". This branch should be frozen with now additional development occurring and evaluated for release. All of the following operations should be performed on this frozen version of the dev branch.

2. Update Version References

1. Setup.py

Update the version parameter in the setup.py file if it was not done already.

2. Documentation

Update the version number in the docs/conf.py and all documentation pages that are applicable (e.g.: docs/index.rst). Do a search for the version number on the entire docs directory to find other places where the version number needs updating or phrasing needs to be changed to refer to the older version in past tense.

3. Update Documentation

1. What's New Page

Move the old What's New Page content to the Prior Releases page. Add short descriptions of new features and bug fixes for the new release and link to appropriate documentation.

2. Installation Instructions

Review installation instructions and update as necessary remembering that when the release is complete, it will be on the master branch.

3. Update Instructions

Review update instructions from the last release and change as necessary remembering that when the release is complete, it will be on the master branch.

4. Finalize Database Migrations

Developers should not commit database migrations as they develop. After freezing the dev branch, perform the following steps to generate the release migrations:

1. Install the current release version of Tethys from scratch.
2. Pull the frozen dev branch and update to the new version that will be released.
3. Change into the /usr/lib/tethys/src directory and make migrations:

(tethys) $ python manage.py makemigrations
(tethys) $ python manage.py migrate

4. Verify that Tethys works as expected.
5. Inspect the migrations directories of the Tethys django apps (tethys_apps, tethys_compute, tethys_config, tethys_services, etc.) for new migration files, add them to the repository, and commit them.

5. Update Repository

1. Merge Frozen Dev Branch to Master Branch

Merge the release candidate branch into the master branch.

2. Tag the Last Commit with Release Version

Tag the merge commit as "X.X.0" and push to the public repository.