systemd/docs/RELEASE.md

title	category	layout	SPDX-License-Identifier
Steps to a Successful Release	Contributing	default	LGPL-2.1-or-later

Steps to a Successful Release

1. Add all items to NEWS
2. Update the contributors list in NEWS (ninja -C build git-contrib)
3. Update the time and place in NEWS
4. Update hwdb (ninja -C build update-hwdb, ninja -C build update-hwdb-autosuspend, commit separately).
5. Update syscall numbers (ninja -C build update-syscall-tables update-syscall-header).
6. [RC1] Update library numbers in meson.build
7. Update version number in meson.version (e.g. from 256~devel to 256~rc1 or from 256~rc3 to 256). Note that this uses a tilde (~) instead of a hyphen (-) because tildes sort lower in version comparisons according to the version format specification, and we want 255~rc1 to sort lower than 255.
8. Check dbus docs with ninja -C build update-dbus-docs
9. Update translation strings (ninja -C build systemd-pot, ninja -C build systemd-update-po) - drop the header comments from systemd.pot + re-add SPDX before committing. If the only change in a file is the 'POT-Creation-Date' field, then ignore that file.
10. Tag the release: version="v$(sed 's/~/-/g' meson.version)" && git tag -s "${version}" -m "systemd ${version}" (tildes are replaced with hyphens, because git doesn't accept the former).
11. Do ninja -C build
12. Make sure that the version string and package string match: build/systemctl --version
13. [FINAL] Close the github milestone and open a new one (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/milestones)
14. "Draft" a new release on github (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/new), mark "This is a pre-release" if appropriate.
15. Check that announcement to systemd-devel, with a copy&paste from NEWS, was sent. This should happen automatically.
16. Update IRC topic (/msg chanserv TOPIC #systemd Version NNN released | Online resources https://systemd.io/)
17. [FINAL] Create an empty -stable branch: git push systemd origin/main:refs/heads/v${version}-stable.
18. [FINAL] Build and upload the documentation (on the -stable branch): ninja -C build doc-sync
19. [FINAL] Change the Github Pages branch to the newly created branch (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/settings/pages) and set the 'Custom domain' to 'systemd.io'
20. [FINAL] Update version number in meson.version to the devel version of the next release (e.g. from v256 to v257~devel)