Release Process

This document guides maintainers through the process of creating an Envoy Gateway release.

• Release Candidate
• Minor Release
• Announce the Release

Release Candidate

The following steps should be used for creating a release candidate.

Prerequisites

• Permissions to push to the Envoy Gateway repository.

Set environment variables for use in subsequent steps:

export MAJOR_VERSION=0
export MINOR_VERSION=3
export RELEASE_CANDIDATE_NUMBER=1
export GITHUB_REMOTE=origin

1. Clone the repo, checkout the main branch, ensure it’s up-to-date, and your local branch is clean.

2. Create a topic branch for adding the release notes and updating the VERSION file with the release version. Refer to previous release notes and VERSION for additional details.

3. Sign, commit, and push your changes to your fork.

4. Submit a Pull Request to merge the changes into the main branch. Do not proceed until your PR has merged and the Build and Test has successfully completed.

5. Create a new release branch from main. The release branch should be named release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}, e.g. release/v0.3.

   git checkout -b release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}
   

6. Push the branch to the Envoy Gateway repo.

   git push ${GITHUB_REMOTE} release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}
   

7. Create a topic branch for updating the Envoy proxy image to the tag supported by the release. Reference PR #958 for additional details on updating the image tag.

8. Sign, commit, and push your changes to your fork.

9. Submit a Pull Request to merge the changes into the release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION} branch. Do not proceed until your PR has merged into the release branch and the Build and Test has completed for your PR.

10. Ensure your release branch is up-to-date and tag the head of your release branch with the release candidate number.

    git tag -a v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0-rc.${RELEASE_CANDIDATE_NUMBER} -m 'Envoy Gateway v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0-rc.${RELEASE_CANDIDATE_NUMBER} Release Candidate'
    

11. Push the tag to the Envoy Gateway repository.

    git push ${GITHUB_REMOTE} v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0-rc.${RELEASE_CANDIDATE_NUMBER}
    

12. This will trigger the release GitHub action that generates the release, release artifacts, etc.

13. Confirm that the release workflow completed successfully.

14. Confirm that the Envoy Gateway image with the correct release tag was published to Docker Hub.

15. Confirm that the release was created.

16. Note that the Quickstart Guide references are not updated for release candidates. However, test the quickstart steps using the release candidate by manually updating the links.

17. Generate the GitHub changelog.

18. Ensure you check the “This is a pre-release” checkbox when editing the GitHub release.

19. If you find any bugs in this process, please create an issue.

Setup cherry picker action

After release branch cut, RM (Release Manager) should add job cherrypick action for target release.

Configuration looks like following:

  cherry_pick_release_v0_4:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Cherry pick into release-v0.4
    if: ${{ contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'cherrypick/release-v0.4') && github.event.pull_request.merged == true }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@b4ffde65f46336ab88eb53be808477a3936bae11  # v4.1.1
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Cherry pick into release/v0.4
        uses: carloscastrojumo/github-cherry-pick-action@a145da1b8142e752d3cbc11aaaa46a535690f0c5  # v1.0.9
        with:
          branch: release/v0.4
          title: "[release/v0.4] {old_title}"
          body: "Cherry picking #{old_pull_request_id} onto release/v0.4"
          labels: |
            cherrypick/release-v0.4            
          # put release manager here
          reviewers: |
            Alice-Lilith            

Replace v0.4 with real branch name, and Alice-Lilith with the real name of RM.

Minor Release

The following steps should be used for creating a minor release.

Prerequisites

• Permissions to push to the Envoy Gateway repository.
• A release branch that has been cut from the corresponding release candidate. Refer to the Release Candidate section for additional details on cutting a release candidate.

Set environment variables for use in subsequent steps:

export MAJOR_VERSION=0
export MINOR_VERSION=3
export GITHUB_REMOTE=origin

1. Clone the repo, checkout the main branch, ensure it’s up-to-date, and your local branch is clean.

2. Create a topic branch for adding the release notes, release announcement, and versioned release docs.

   1. Create the release notes. Reference previous release notes for additional details. Note: The release notes should be an accumulation of the release candidate release notes and any changes since the release candidate.
   2. Create a release announcement. Refer to PR #635 as an example release announcement.
   3. Include the release in the compatibility matrix. Refer to PR #1002 as an example.
   4. Generate the versioned release docs:

      make docs-release TAG=v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0
   

   5. Update the Get Started and Contributing button referred link in site/content/en/_index.md:

      <a class="btn btn-lg btn-primary me-3 mb-4" href="/v0.5.0">
      Get Started <i class="fas fa-arrow-alt-circle-right ms-2"></i>
      </a>
      <a class="btn btn-lg btn-secondary me-3 mb-4" href="/v0.5.0/contributions">
      Contributing <i class="fa fa-heartbeat ms-2 "></i>
      </a>
   

   6. Uodate the Documentation referred link on the menu in site/hugo.toml:

   [[menu.main]]
      name = "Documentation"
      weight = -101
      pre = "<i class='fas fa-book pr-2'></i>"
      url = "/v0.5.0"
   

3. Sign, commit, and push your changes to your fork.

4. Submit a Pull Request to merge the changes into the main branch. Do not proceed until all your PRs have merged and the Build and Test has completed for your final PR.

5. Checkout the release branch.

   git checkout -b release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION} $GITHUB_REMOTE/release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}
   

6. If the tip of the release branch does not match the tip of main, perform the following:

   1. Create a topic branch from the release branch.

   2. Cherry-pick the commits from main that differ from the release branch.

   3. Run tests locally, e.g. make lint.

   4. Sign, commit, and push your topic branch to your Envoy Gateway fork.

   5. Submit a PR to merge the topic from of your fork into the Envoy Gateway release branch.

   6. Do not proceed until the PR has merged and CI passes for the merged PR.

   7. If you are still on your topic branch, change to the release branch:

      git checkout release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}
      

   8. Ensure your local release branch is up-to-date:

      git pull $GITHUB_REMOTE release/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}
      

7. Tag the head of your release branch with the release tag. For example:

   git tag -a v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0 -m 'Envoy Gateway v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0 Release'
   

   Note: The tag version differs from the release branch by including the .0 patch version.

8. Push the tag to the Envoy Gateway repository.

   git push origin v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0
   

9. This will trigger the release GitHub action that generates the release, release artifacts, etc.

10. Confirm that the release workflow completed successfully.

11. Confirm that the Envoy Gateway image with the correct release tag was published to Docker Hub.

12. Confirm that the release was created.

13. Confirm that the steps in the Quickstart Guide work as expected.

14. Generate the GitHub changelog and include the following text at the beginning of the release page:

# Release Announcement

Check out the [v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION} release announcement]
(https://gateway.envoyproxy.io/releases/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.html) to learn more about the release.

If you find any bugs in this process, please create an issue.

Announce the Release

It’s important that the world knows about the release. Use the following steps to announce the release.

1. Set the release information in the Envoy Gateway Slack channel. For example:

   Envoy Gateway v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION} has been released: https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}.0
   

2. Send a message to the Envoy Gateway Slack channel. For example:

   On behalf of the entire Envoy Gateway community, I am pleased to announce the release of Envoy Gateway
   v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION}. A big thank you to all the contributors that made this release possible.
   Refer to the official v${MAJOR_VERSION}.${MINOR_VERSION} announcement for release details and the project docs
   to start using Envoy Gateway.
   ...
   

   Link to the GitHub release and release announcement page that highlights the release.