Release checklist Plone 6.0.0rc1

[mauritsvanrees]

Release packages, update versions

• [x] Check Jenkins Status: should be green. (This should be checked often during the release process.)
• [x] In coredev, check packages for updates: bin/manage report --interactive. This is less needed now that we have mr.roboto to add packages to the checkouts. Use bin/versioncheck to see if any new PyPI releases are worth adding, or check the artifact of the versioncheck GitHub Action.
• [x] Release individual packages from checkouts.cfg.
• [x] Check that the version numbers of CMFPlone metadata.xml and latest upgrade step are in sync, and that they are higher than in the previous Plone release.
• [x] Handle special packages, often handled by special people. :-) You can can ping people in the release-team channel on Discord, in the current issue, or individually:
  • [x] plonetheme.barceloneta needs a release on PyPI and npmjs. Maybe ask Peter Holzer (agitator) or Peter Mathis (petschki) for assistence.
  • [x] plone.staticresources and mockup. Ask on Discord in the classic-ui or ask Johannes (thet), Peter Mathis (petschki) or Maik (MrTango).
  • [x] plone.restapi and maybe plone.volto. If needed, ask the Plone REST api team or Timo (tisto) for a new release.
  • [x] plone.app.locales. Create an issue there or ask Mikel (erral).
  • [x] Release plone.app.upgrade and Plone yourself.
  • [x] Update the versions of those packages in versions.cfg.
• [x] Make an alpha/beta/release candidate release of Products.CMFPlone (e.g. 6.0.0a1, later 6.0.0b1 and 6.0.0rc1). Fine to release this on PyPI. Once Plone 6 is final, we can continue doing release candidates for the bugfix releases, so people can try it in a pending release.

Release notes, constraints, dist.plone.org

• [x] Adjust coredev branch release/6.0-dev. Most importantly, the auto-checkout list in checkouts.cfg should be empty, and the versions.cfg and requirements.txt should be the same. One way that works for me: git checkout release/6.0-dev; git reset --hard 6.0; git reset origin/release/6.0-dev. Then check which changes you want to commit.
• [x] Update the 6.0-dev directory on dist.plone.org, and gather files to put there:
  • [x] You can use tox -c release/tox.ini -p auto to create or copy some files in release/dist. But you need to create some of those files first.
  • [x] Create a unified changelog based on the previous release: bin/manage changelog --start=6.0.0a1 > release/changelog.txt. Remove the uninteresting top lines. You may want to link to the Zope changelog with a specific tag.
  • [x] Create a file release/RELEASE-NOTES.md. It may be enough to look through the changelog and copy interesting changes.
  • [x] Get the versions.cfg file and any other versions files from coredev.
  • [x] Create a release/constraints.txt file from this. The above tox command generates this. Note: at some point I expect the constraints file to become leading, and we may need to generate a versions.cfg file instead.
  • [x] Copy (rsync) these files to the pending release directory. (We used to copy packages as well, but we do not do this for Plone 6 anymore.)
• [x] Write a post on community.plone.org announcing a pending/soft release. See example. In the 6.0 alpha/beta/rc stage, we can skip pending releases and just make a real release.
• [x] Wait for feedback, preferably at most a few days. As said, in the alpha/beta/rc stage, we can skip this.

Final release, Docker

• [x] Make final release of Products.CMFPlone to PyPI, update versions.cfg.
• [x] In release/6.0-dev branch update changelog, release notes, constraints.txt.
• [x] Create tag of the release/6.0-dev branch, e.g. 6.0.0a1, and push to GitHub.
• [x] Make final release directory on dist.plone.org, with versions, requirements, constraints, changelog, release notes.
• [x] Update the "-latest" links on dist.plone.org, e.g. ln -sfT 6.0.0a1 6.0-latest
• [x] Notify Erico, perhaps on the #install-and-deploy Discord channel, that there is a new release. He can create Docker images then.

Announcements

You probably want to wait until the Docker images are there, but don't wait long.

• [x] Create release page on https://plone.org/download/releases
• [x] Send mail to Marketing Team so they can prepare announcements.
• [x] Update the https://plone.org/security/hotfixes/ page in the configuration control panel. This is done in the configuration registry: plone.securitysupport, plone.versions, plone.activemaintenance. You could ask the security team.
• [x] Publish release page on plone.org.
• [x] Update the release schedule: note the new release, and say when the next release in this series is expected.
• [x] Announce on community.plone.org.

[wesleybl]

@mauritsvanrees please consider this: https://github.com/plone/plone.restapi/issues/1536

[mauritsvanrees]

All done.