Automate Release Note Generation

[JadenC1126]

Problem Statement

We currently don't have a good way to track what features are included in the release. We also don't have a good way to communicate the features to users.

Proposed Solution

We plan to have a milestone for each release. This milestone includes a list of issues for that release. It also sometimes includes a short description of the milestone.

Alternatives Considered

• Release Drafter
  • Creates the release notes based off the PRs between tags.
  • Doesn't support milestones
  • Very popular (>2k stars)
• Release Notes Generator
  • Generates release notes based on milestones
  • Gives an example of running it when a milestone is closed.
  • • not as much flexibility & documentation isn't as detailed as other alternatives
  • uses: github-changelog-generator
• generate-changelog-action
• release-notes-generator-action
• generate-changelog-action
• towncrier
  • Discussion from Scipy: https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/7793

Proposed Action Plan

• [ ] Create release notes using gren based on the issues of the milestone and commit them.
  • https://github.com/lakto/gren-action
  • Only for production releases
• [ ] Add the release notes to the GitHub release description
• [ ] Send an e-mail announcing the release
  • Send it to the IDS users mailing list

[JadenC1126]

Will be using: Release notes generator

Adding separate workflow:

• create release notes when milestone is closed
• add release note to the docs/release_notes/ directory & commit to the repo using git-auto-commit-action
• create one large markdown file with all files' contents included in the docs/release_notes/ directory & commit to the repo using git-auto-commit-action