[CRAN Release]: <version>

[shajoezhu]

Blocked by

PRs

• PR 1

Issues

• Issue 1

Pre-release

• Make sure you adhere to CRAN submission policy:
  • https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/submission_checklist.html
  • https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html.
• Make sure that high priority bugs (label "priority" + "bug") have been resolved before going into the release.
• Review old/hanging PRs before going into the release (Optional).
• Revisit R-package's lifecycle badges (Optional).
• Make sure that all upstream dependencies of this package that need to be submitted to CRAN were accepted before going into release activities.
• Make sure integration tests are green 2-3 days before the release. Look carefully through logs (check for warnings and notes).
• Decide what gets merged in before starting release activities.

Release

Prepare the release

• Create a new release candidate branch
  git checkout -b release-candidate-vX.Y.Z
• Update NEWS.md file: make sure it reflects a holistic summary of what has changed in the package.
• Remove the additional fields (Remotes) from the DESCRIPTION file where applicable.
• Make sure that the minimum dependency versions are updated in the DESCRIPTION file for the package and its reverse dependencies (Optional).
  • Increase versioned dependency on {package name} to >=X.Y.Z (Optional).
• Commit your changes and create the PR on GitHub (add "[skip vbump]" in the PR title). Add all updates, commit, and push changes:

  # Make the necessary modifications to your files
  # Stage the changes
  git add <files your modified>
  # Commit the changes
  git commit -m "[skip vbump] <Your commit message>"
  git push origin release-candidate-vX.Y.Z`

Test the release

• Execute the manual tests on Shiny apps that are deployed on various hosting providers (Posit connect and shinyapps.io) - track the results in GitHub issue (Applicable only for frameworks that use Shiny).
• Monitor integration tests, if integration fails, create priority issues on the board.
• Execute UAT tests (Optional).

CRAN submission

• Tag the update(s) as a release candidate vX.Y.Z-rc (e.g. v0.5.3-rc1) on the release candidate branch (release-candidate-vX.Y.Z).

  # Create rc tag for submission for internal validation
  git tag vX.Y.Z-rc<iteration number>
  git push origin vX.Y.Z-rc<iteration number>

• Build the package locally using the command:R CMD build . which will generate a .tar.gz file necessary for the CRAN submission.
• Submit the package to https://win-builder.r-project.org/upload.aspx for testing, for more details please see "Building and checking R source packages for Windows": https://win-builder.r-project.org/.
• Once tested, send the package that was built in the previous steps to CRAN via this form: https://cran.r-project.org/submit.html.
• Address CRAN feedback, tag the package vX.Y.Z-rc(n+1) and repeat the submission to CRAN whenever necessary.
• Get the package accepted and published on CRAN.

Tag the release

• If the additional fields were removed, add them back in a separate PR, and then merge the PR back to main (add "[skip vbump]" in the PR title). If nothing was removed just merge the PR you created in the "Prepare the release" section to 'main'. Note the commit hash of the merged commit. Note: additional commits might be added to the main branch by a bot or an automation - we do NOT want to tag this commit.

Make sure of the following before continuing

• CI checks are passing in GH before releasing the package.

• Shiny apps are deployable and there are no errors/warnings (Applicable only for frameworks that use Shiny).

• Create a git tag with the final version set to vX.Y.Z on the main branch. In order to do this:

  1. Checkout the commit hash.
     git checkout <commit hash>
  2. Tag the hash with the release version (vX.Y.Z).
     git tag vX.Y.Z
  3. Push the tag to make the final release.
     git push origin vX.Y.Z

• Update downstream package dependencies to (>=X.Y.Z) in {package name}.
  Note: Once the release tag is created, the package is automatically published to internal repositories.

Post-release

• Ensure that CRAN checks are passing for the package.
• Make sure that the package is published to internal repositories.
• Make sure internal documentation is up to date.
• Review and update installation instructions for the package wherever needed (Optional).
• Announce the release on ________.

Decision tree

Click here to see the release decision tree.