RELEASE.md

How to create a LALSuite release

The document attempts to describe the workflow for creating a release of a subpackage of LALSuite. Note that only authorised persons will be able to push directly to the relevant release branch.

The workflow is (roughly) as follows:

1. cherry-pick/merge everything required onto the release branch (e.g. o3b-release) via a Merge Request; please use the -x and --gpg-sign option to git-cherry-pick
2. for each subpackage (e.g. lal):
   1. update the following for the release:
      • /lal/configure.ac (package and library version numbers, and upstream LALSuite dependencies -- carefully read the instructions on how to change the library version number)
      • /lal/debian/control.in (changelog entry)
      • /lal/lalsimulation.spec.in (changelog entry)
   2. commit the resulting changes onto the release branch (one file at a time, if you like)
   3. tag lal-vX.Y.Z on the release branch

      git tag --annotate --sign lal-vX.Y.Z

   4. generate the release tarball

      git checkout lal-vX.Y.Z
      ./00boot
      ./configure --enable-swig
      make dist -C lal
      git checkout <release-branch>

3. update the following for the top-level lalsuite release:
   • /configure.ac (lalsuite version number)
4. commit the resulting changes onto the release branch
5. tag lalsuite-vX.Y on the release branch

   git tag --annotate --sign lalsuite-vX.Y
   

6. push the new references up to the repository

   git push upstream lal-vX.Y.Z  # (repeat as required for each subpackage)
   git push upstream lalsuite-vX.Y

7. upload the release tarballs to http://software.ligo.org/lscsoft/source/
8. open an SCCB ticket
9. merge the release branch onto master via a Merge Request
   • use a local branch on your fork to merge the two branches
   • update the package versions in /configure.ac and all /<subpackage>/configure.ac files for released subpackages to X.Y.Z.1 to indicate that they are back in development mode