Patch Release Checklist¶

These are the steps involved in performing a Mantid patch release. To perform a full release look see Release Checklist.

Request ¶

Anyone may request a patch release, but that request must be intially approved by one of the local PMs.

Authorisation ¶

The Project Management Team must meet to authorise the patch release.
During the meeting other high value, low impact changes may be considered for inclusion for the release. Any that are to be included must be added to the patch release notes.
The Project Manager will create a new milestone in github, and all tickets to be included must be moved to that milestone.
A developer will be nominated to be the main reviewer and compiler of the patch.

The patch release will be prepared based off the tag used to mark the last minor release. A branch called release-next will be created from this tag. Changes for the patch should be made using the standard GitHub workflow for merging code with main. The issue and pull request should then have the PatchCandidate label applied to them. These commits will then be cherry picked from main on to the release branch.

Release Branch ¶

The release branch will currently have its version fixed to exact version of the last major/patch release. It is not a requirement but advised to unfix the patch number while the patch is being compiled. This prevents the nightly builds from generating a collection of packages that have exactly the same version. The patch number can be unfixed by commenting the line in https://www.github.com/mantidproject/mantid/blob/release-next/buildconfig/CMake/VersionNumber.cmake#L9.

Release Notes ¶

Once the patch version has been unfixed the main reviewer should create a skeleton set of patch release notes on the release branch using the python helper tool.

Cherry Picking & Code Review ¶

It is the job of the main reviewer of the release to review each issue/pull request marked PatchCandiate and decide if the risks of the changes are low enough to include in a release that will not undergo full beta testing by scientists. If it is acceptable then on the release branch for each pull request:

find the list of commit SHA1 values in that pull request
check if any of these commits has altered the release notes for the next major release
if not then pass all commits in the order oldest->newest to git cherry-pick -x
if release notes were modified in a commit on their own then pass all commits except this one in the order oldest->newest to git cherry-pick -x
if a commit has a mixture of code/release note changes then:
- pass the list of commits up to but not including this commit to git cherry-pick -x
- now pass this single commit to git cherry-pick -x -n and it will not make a commit. Remove the major release note changes and commit git add/git commit
- if there are any remaining commits after this then pass them to git cherry-pick -x as before.
finally add a commit that updates the patch release notes with this pull request link and description in the table.

Once cherry picked the milestone of the original pull request should be updated to the patch milestone.

Nightly Builds ¶

The release pipeline contains jobs that check for changes on the current release branch each night (00:00 GMT). Any detected changes will cause a clean build of the code followed by a run of the system tests. The Linux clean builds should have the PACKAGE_SUFFIX set to nightly while testing the patch.

These jobs should be checked each morning to confirm that everything is green.

Release Day ¶

On the day of release a few steps are required:

update the patch version:
navigate to https://www.github.com/mantidproject/mantid/blob/release-next/buildconfig/CMake/VersionNumber.cmake
edit the VERSION_PATCH to the required number for the patch and commit the result
run a manual build of all of the OS jobs under {{ site.mantidreleasebuilds }} and when asked for a suffix use an empty string
wait for the builds to finish (will take more than 1 cup of tea/coffee/beverage of choice)

While waiting for the builds create a new release on GitHub, using a tag of the form v.X.Y.Z and populate with information from the release notes (see a previous version of the format).

Once the builds complete have the development team run unscripted testing on the packages generated by the clean release builds. In particular the issues intended to be fixed should be tested.

Once the testing has passed:

Use the manual deploy job at release pipeline to deploy packages and documentation to the public web.
The windows binary will not be deployed and must be signed by someone at ISIS and uploaded to sourceforge manually
Put packages on GitHub
RHEL 7 only: Build the suffix-package mantidXY by running another clean RHEL 7 build from the release pipeline but use the suffix XY, where X is the major version and Y is the minor version (currently used at SNS)
Create new DOI using the scripts in the codebase and instructions on release checklist.
Open a PR to update the relevant metadata in the CITATION.cff file as explained in the release checklist.
Send an email, including the text of the release notes, to the following lists
nobugs@nobugsconference.org
news@neutronsources.org
neutron@neutronsources.org
Also post the contents of the message on Announcements on Slack
Add topic to the news page on the forum
Close the release milestone in github
Remove the patch candidate tag from pull requests (if not already done)