This issue is to track ideas to improve the release process, in foresight of next release. Please edit it at will.

Pre-release:

• 0.56.0 pre-release thread (stuff to do to be shipped in the release) #3168

Task list:

• Emit notices to server owners about the upcoming release to give them time to prepare instances

Release process:

• Prepare blog post
  • Gather the changes (list commits)
  • Summarize the changes (for the redactor)
  • Write a blog post
  • Proof read blog post
• Write release notes for server owners to ease the transition
• Merge
  • Merge remaining PRs (see above)
  • Merge for-<version>/sync to master if exists
• Commit version numbers and push commits
• Tag release
  • tag release
  • tag every submodule of Unvanquished and UnvanquishedAssets with unvanquished/<version>
  • tag Urcheon
  • Push release tags
• Build release
  • Rebuild engine binaries
    • Linux (linux-amd64, linux-i686, linux-arm64, linux-armhf)
    • Windows (windows-amd64, windows-i686)
    • macOS (macos-amd64)
  • Rebuild dpks
    • Rebuild game nexes
    • Rebuild data
    • Package dpks
    • Package unizip
  • Build and upload benchmark demo
  • Check with validate-release
• Set up game servers
  • unvanquished.net
  • gg.illwieckz.net
• Set up distribution
  • Upload unizip to dl.unvanquished.net
  • Convert unizip to torrent in cdn.unvanquished.net
  • Make sure CDN mirrors mirrored
  • Upload to GitHub
  • Run script to set <version> default download and to publish torrent
• Publish blog post
• Social medias
  • Write and publish Mastodon post
  • Write and publish X post
  • Write and publish Facebook post
  • Write and publish Reddit post
• @everyone and @room message as announcement post in Discord (bridged to Matrix)
• Message on IRC
• Update flatpak recipe
• Update version numbers on Wiki template: https://wiki.unvanquished.net/wiki/Template:Version

Post-release things:

• Make sure FOSS Torrents knows about the release
• Make sure Phoronix knows about the release
• Translate blog post for LinuxFr.org or make sure someone writes an article about the release
• Make sure sf.net mirrored the unizip.
• Upload the unizip to IndieDB as a backup
• Copy blog post to IndieDB
• Duplicate this issue for <next version>