Patch Release Checklist

This process handles patch releases from version vX.Y.Z to vX.Y.Z+1 assuming that vX.Y.Z is the latest released version of go-ipfs.

• Get temporary permissions to force-push to release-* branches (@guseggert is this needed, doesn't seem like it. I think this was just for last time)
• Fork a new branch (release-vX.Y.Z) from release and cherry-pick the relevant commits from master (or custom fixes) onto this branch
  • Use git cherry-pick -x so that the commit message says (cherry picked from commit ...)
• Make a minimal changelog update tracking the relevant fixes to CHANGELOG, as its own commit e.g. docs: update changelog vX.Y.Z+1
• version string in version.go has been updated (in the release-vX.Y.Z+1 branch), as its own commit.
• Make a PR merging release-vX.Y.Z+1 into the release branch
  • This may be unnecessary, e.g. for backports
• Tag the merge commit in the release branch with vX.Y.Z+1 (ensure the tag is signed)
• Upload to dist.ipfs.io
  1. Build: https://github.com/ipfs/distributions#usage.
  2. Pin the resulting release.
  3. Make a PR against ipfs/distributions with the updated versions, including the new hash in the PR comment.
  4. Ask the infra team to update the DNSLink record for dist.ipfs.io to point to the new distribution. Not necessary, taken care of by CI after merging into master (https://github.com/ipfs/distributions/blob/6e06450dcf68d9749bb7d7092135a16e8271d276/.github/workflows/main.yml#L154)
• cut a release on github and upload the result of the ipfs/distributions build in the previous step.
• Announce the Release:
  • On IRC/Matrix (both #ipfs and #ipfs-dev)
  • On discuss.ipfs.io
• Release published
  • to dist.ipfs.io
  • to npm-go-ipfs
  • to chocolatey
  • to snap
  • to github
  • to arch (flag it out of date)
• Cut a new ipfs-desktop release
• Merge the release branch back into master, ignoring the changes to version.go (keep the -dev version from master).