Release guidelines

In this document, 123 is a placeholder for the current release number, and 124 for the following release number.

Beta releases

Beta release

1. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Change the Unreleased heading to 123.0.0-beta.0.
2. dev branch: update the user manual URL if necessary.
3. Create a release/123.0 branch using the dev branch.
4. release/123.0 branch: update the package.json version string to 123.0.0-beta.0. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
5. Create a v123.0.0-beta.0 tag using the release branch.
6. Test the release branch. Make any required fixes in the dev branch, and merge them into the release branch. Ideally, bump the version and create a new tag every time changes are merged. If you don't want to bump the version, remember to destroy and recreate the latest tag.
7. Create packages from the release branch.

After beta release

1. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Create a new Unreleased section.
2. dev branch: update the documentation website (guidelines). Create a new version 123.0.0-beta.0.

Additional beta release

This process should be followed if changes have to be made after the beta packages have already been published (or even provided to a limited number of users). If there are significant changes in dev that should not be included in the beta release, follow the point release procedure instead (but adjust the version strings as required).

1. Make the required fixes in dev.
2. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Change the Unreleased heading to 123.0.0-beta.1.
3. dev branch: update the user manual URL if necessary.
4. Merge the dev branch into the release/123.0 branch.
5. release/123.0 branch: update the package.json version string to 123.0.0-beta.1. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
6. Create a v123.0.0-beta.1 tag using the release branch.
7. Test the release branch. Make any required fixes in the dev branch, and merge them into the release branch. Ideally, bump the version and create a new tag every time changes are merged. If you don't want to bump the version, remember to destroy and recreate the latest tag.
8. Create packages from the release branch.

Stable releases

Final release

1. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Change the Unreleased heading to 123.0.0.
2. dev branch: update the user manual URL if necessary.
3. Merge the dev branch into the release/123.0 branch.
4. release/123.0 branch: update the package.json version string to 123.0.0-rc.0. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
5. Create a v123.0.0-rc.0 tag using the release branch.
6. Test the release branch. Make any required fixes in the dev branch, and merge them into the release branch. Ideally, bump the version and create a new tag every time changes are merged. If you don't want to bump the version, remember to destroy and recreate the latest tag.
7. release/123.0 branch: update the package.json version string to 123.0.0. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
8. Create a v123.0.0 tag using the release branch.
9. Create packages from the release branch.

After final release

1. dev branch: update the package.json version string to 124.0.0-dev. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
2. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Create a new Unreleased section.
3. dev branch: update the documentation website (guidelines). Create a new version 123.0.0.

Point release

This process should be followed if important bug fixes have to be released after the final release packages have already been published (or even provided to a limited number of users). If there are no changes in dev that should not be included in the point release, follow the additional beta release procedure instead (but adjust the version strings as required).

1. Make the required fixes in dev. Cherry-pick them into the release branch.
2. dev branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Move the cherry-picked changes from the Unreleased section to a new 123.0.1 section under Unreleased.
3. release/123.0 branch: update CHANGELOG.md. Copy only the 123.0.1 section from the changelog in the dev branch.
4. release/123.0 branch: update the package.json version string to 123.0.1. Run npm install to update package-lock.json.
5. Create a v123.0.1 tag using the release branch.
6. Test the release branch. If an issue affects both dev and the release branch, fix it in dev and cherry-pick the changes into the release branch. If an issue is caused by changes in dev which are not included in the point release, make the minimal required changes in the release branch. Ideally, bump the version and create a new tag every time changes are made. If you don't want to bump the version, remember to destroy and recreate the latest tag.
7. Create packages from the release branch.

After point release

• dev branch: update the documentation website (guidelines). Replace version 123.0.0 with 123.0.1.