Zebra/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/release-checklist.md

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Release Checklist Template	Checklist of versioning to create a taggable commit for Zebra

Versioning

How to Increment Versions

Zebra follows semantic versioning. Semantic versions look like: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH[-TAG.PRE-RELEASE]

The draft zebrad changelog will have an automatic version bump. This version is based on the labels on the PRs in the release.

Check that the automatic zebrad version increment is correct:

If we're releasing a mainnet network upgrade, it is a major release:

1. Increment the major version of all the Zebra crates.
2. Increment the patch version of the tower crates.

If we're not releasing a mainnet network upgrade, check for features, major changes, deprecations, and removals. If this release has any, it is a minor release:

1. Increment the minor version of zebrad.
2. Increment the pre-release version of the other crates.
3. Increment the patch version of the tower crates.

Otherwise, it is a patch release:

1. Increment the patch version of zebrad.
2. Increment the pre-release version of the other crates.
3. Increment the patch version of the tower crates.

Zebra's Rust API is not stable or supported, so we keep all the crates on the same beta pre-release version.

Version Locations

Once you know which versions you want to increment, you can find them in the:

zebrad (rc):

• zebrad Cargo.toml
• zebra-network protocol user agent: https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra/blob/main/zebra-network/src/constants.rs
• README.md
• book/src/user/docker.md

crates (beta):

• zebra-* Cargo.tomls

tower (patch):

• tower-* Cargo.tomls

auto-generated:

• Cargo.lock: run cargo build after updating all the Cargo.tomls

Version Tooling

You can use fastmod to interactively find and replace versions.

For example, you can do something like:

fastmod --extensions rs,toml,md --fixed-strings '1.0.0-rc.0' '1.0.0-rc.1' zebrad README.md zebra-network/src/constants.rs book/src/user/docker.md
fastmod --extensions rs,toml,md --fixed-strings '1.0.0-beta.15' '1.0.0-beta.16' zebra-*
fastmod --extensions rs,toml,md --fixed-strings '0.2.30' '0.2.31' tower-batch tower-fallback
cargo build

If you use fastmod, don't update versions in CHANGELOG.md or zebra-dependencies-for-audit.md.

README

Update the README to:

• Remove any "Known Issues" that have been fixed
• Update the "Build and Run Instructions" with any new dependencies. Check for changes in the Dockerfile since the last tag: git diff <previous-release-tag> docker/Dockerfile.
• If Zebra has started using newer Rust language features or standard library APIs, update the known working Rust version in the README, book, and Cargo.tomls

You can use a command like:

      fastmod --fixed-strings '1.58' '1.65'

Checkpoints

With every release and for performance reasons, we want to update the Zebra checkpoints. More information on how to do this can be found in the zebra-checkpoints README.

To do this you will need a synchronized zcashd node. You can request help from other zebra team members to submit this PR if you can't make it yourself at the moment of the release.

Missed Dependency Updates

Sometimes dependabot misses some dependency updates, or we accidentally turned them off.

Here's how we make sure we got everything:

1. Run cargo update on the latest main branch, and keep the output
2. If needed, update deny.toml
3. Open a separate PR with the changes, including the output of cargo update

Change Log

Important: Any merge into main deletes any edits to the draft changelog. Once you are ready to tag a release, copy the draft changelog into CHANGELOG.md.

We use the Release Drafter workflow to automatically create a draft changelog. We follow the Keep a Changelog format.

To create the final change log:

• Copy the latest draft changelog into CHANGELOG.md (there can be multiple draft releases)
• Delete any trivial changes. Keep the list of those, to include in the PR
• Combine duplicate changes
• Edit change descriptions so they are consistent, and make sense to non-developers
• Check the category for each change
  • Prefer the "Fix" category if you're not sure

Change Categories

From "Keep a Changelog":

• Added for new features.
• Changed for changes in existing functionality.
• Deprecated for soon-to-be removed features.
• Removed for now removed features.
• Fixed for any bug fixes.
• Security in case of vulnerabilities.

Create the Release

Create the Release PR

After you have the version increments, the updated checkpoints, any missed dependency updates, and the updated changelog:

• Make sure the PRs with the new checkpoint hashes and missed dependencies are already merged
• Push the version increments and the updated changelog into a branch (for example: bump-v1.0.0-rc.0 - this needs to be different to the tag name)
• Create a release PR by adding &template=release-checklist.md to the comparing url (Example).
  • Add the list of deleted changelog entries as a comment to make reviewing easier.
• Turn on Merge Freeze.
• Once the PR is ready to be merged, unfreeze it here. Do not unfreeze the whole repository.
• Update the PR to the latest main branch using @mergifyio update. Then Mergify should merge it in-place. If it makes a merge PR instead, that PR will get cancelled by the merge freeze. So just merge the changelog PR manually.

Create the Release

• Once the PR has been merged, create a new release using the draft release as a base, by clicking the Edit icon in the draft release
• Set the tag name to the version tag, for example: v1.0.0-rc.0
• Set the release to target the main branch
• Set the release title to Zebra followed by the version tag, for example: Zebra 1.0.0-rc.0
• Replace the prepopulated draft changelog in the release description with the final changelog you created; starting just after the title ## [Zebra ... of the current version being released, and ending just before the title of the previous release.
• Mark the release as 'pre-release', until it has been built and tested
• Publish the pre-release to GitHub using "Publish Release"
• Delete all the draft releases from the list of releases

Binary Testing

• Wait until the Docker binaries have been built on main, and the quick tests have passed. (You can ignore the full sync and lightwalletd tests, because they take about a day to run.)
• Publish the release to GitHub by disabling 'pre-release', then clicking "Set as the latest release"
• Wait until the Docker images have been published
• Test the Docker image using docker run --tty --interactive zfnd/zebra:1.0.0-rc.<version>, and put the output in a comment on the PR
• Turn off Merge Freeze for the whole repository

Blog Post

If the release contains new features (major or minor), or high-priority bug fixes:

• Ask the team about doing a blog post

Release Failures

If building or running fails after tagging:

1. Fix the bug that caused the failure
2. Increment versions again, following these instructions from the start
3. Update the code and documentation with a new git tag
4. Update CHANGELOG.md with details about the fix
5. Tag a new release