Merge pull request #3954 from armanbilge/topic/how-to-release

Document release process

Author: djspiewak

RELEASING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# Release procedure
+
+1. Draft a new release.
+1. Create a new tag with the appropriate name (e.g. v3.5.1); also name the release accordingly.
+1. Make sure you're targeting the appropriate branch! (probably the minor branch)
+1. "Generate new release notes"
+1. edit edit edit
+   - Increment and transliterate the release counter
+   - Cargo-cult the old release notes header from the last minor release (including any warnings)
+   - Add any special notes to the release header (any major changes or fixes that need calling out)
+   - Fix up any formatting or PRs that got sorted to the wrong category
+   - Double-check PR attributions (collaborations, hand-offs, etc.)
+   - Just make it look nice :)
+1. Publish the release.
+1. Wait for all the CI madness to happen, for the release to announced to Discord, and for the artifacts to sync to Maven Central.
+1. Make sure you're locally updated and on the right major/minor branch (this is the same branch as step 3).
+1. Open a PR to merge the minor branch into the major branch. This is only necessary for patch releases.
+
+   `scripts/make-release-prs.sh <old-version> <new-version>`
+
+   e.g. `scripts/make-release-prs.sh v3.5.1 v3.5.2`
+
+1. Open a PR to update the version in the README and documentation site. This is only necessary for stable releases (i.e., not Milestones or Release Candidates)
+
+   `scripts/make-site-pr.sh <old-version> <new-version>`
+
+   e.g. `scripts/make-site-pr.sh v3.5.1 v3.5.2`