lightning/doc/MAKING-RELEASES.md

Release checklist

Here's a checklist for the release process.

Leading Up To The Release

1. Talk to team about whether there are any changes which MUST go in this release which may cause delay.
2. Create a milestone for the next release, and go though issues and PR and mark accordingly.
3. Ask the most significant contributor who has not already named a release to name the release (use devtools/credit). CC previous namers and team.

Prepering for -rc1

1. Check that CHANGELOG.md is well formatted, ordered in areas, covers all signficant changes, and sub-ordered approximately by user impact & coolness.
2. Update the CHANGELOG.md with [Unreleased] changed to -rc1, and add a new footnote.
3. Create a PR with the above.

Releasing -rc1

1. Merge the PR above.
2. Tag it git pull && git tag -s v<VERSION>rc1 && git push --tags
3. Update the /topic on #c-lightning on Freenode.
4. Prepare draft release notes (see devtools/credit), and share with team for editing.
5. Upgrade your personal nodes to the rc1, to help testing.

Tagging the Release

1. Update the CHANGELOG.md; remove -rc1 in both places, and move the [Unreleased] footnote URL from the previous version to the about-to-be-released version.
2. Commit that, then git tag -s v<VERSION> && git push --tags.
3. Run tools/build-release.sh to create the images, SHA256SUMS and signatures into release/.
4. Upload the files resulting files to github and save as a draft. (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/releases/)
5. Ping the rest of the team to check the SHA256SUMS file and have them gpg -sb --armor SHA256SUMS.
6. Append the signatures into a file called SHA256SUMS.asc, verify with gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc and include the file in the draft release.

Performing the Release

1. Edit the GitHub draft and include the SHA256SUMS.asc file.
2. Publish the release as not a draft.
3. Update the /topic on #c-lightning on Freenode.
4. Send a mail to c-lightning and lightning-dev mailing lists, using the same wording as the Release Notes in github.

Post-release

1. Add a new '[Unreleased]' section the CHANGELOG.md with empty headers.
2. Look through PRs which were delayed for release and merge them.