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Making a regular release

This list outlines the manual steps needed to make a new release of the benefits app.

A release is made by pushing an annotated tag. The name of the tag must use the version number format mentioned below. This kicks off a deployment to the production environment and creates a GitHub release. The version number for the app and the release will be the tag’s name. More details on the deployment steps can be found under Workflows.

The list of releases can be found on the repository Releases page on GitHub.

Start a new Release on Github

0. Decide on the new version number

A new release implies a new version.

benefits uses the CalVer versioning scheme, where version numbers look like: YYYY.0M.R

  • YYYY is the 4-digit year of the release; e.g. 2021, 2022
  • 0M is the 2-digit, 0-padded month of the release; e.g. 02 is February, 12 is December.
  • R is the 1-based release counter for the given year and month; e.g. 1 for the first release of the month, 2 for the second, and so on.

Version numbers for release candidates append -rcR, where R is the 1-based release counter for the anticipated release. For example, the first release candidate for the 2024.01.1 release would be 2024.01.1-rc1.

1. Create a release candidate tag on main and push it

git fetch
git checkout main
git reset --hard origin/main
git tag -a YYYY.0M.R-rcR

Git will open your default text editor and prompt you for the tag annotation. For the tag annotation, use the release candidate version. Finally, after closing the text editor:

git push origin YYYY.0M.R-rcR

This builds a new package and deploys to the Azure test environments. No GitHub release is created for release candidates.

2. Create a release tag on main and push it

git fetch
git checkout main
git reset --hard origin/main
git tag -a YYYY.0M.R

Git will open your default text editor and prompt you for the tag annotation. For the tag annotation, use the title of the Release process issue that kicked off the release. Finally, after closing the text editor:

git push origin YYYY.0M.R

This builds the package and deploys to the Azure production environments. A GitHub release is created.

3. Generate release notes

Edit release notes with additional context, images, animations, etc. as-needed and link to the Release process issue.