HOWTO_RELEASE.md

How to make a new GPflow release

1. Check that RELEASE.md contains the up-to-date release notes for the next release.

   • They should cover all (non-GitHub-related) commits (PRs) on the develop branch since the most recent release.
   • They should make clear to users whether they might benefit from this release and what backwards incompatibilities they might face.

2. Bump the version numbers in the develop branch, in the VERSION file and in doc/source/conf.py (example PR: #1666). Copy the RELEASE.md template for the following release-in-progress.

3. Create a release PR from develop to master.

   • Make a merge commit. DO NOT SQUASH-MERGE.
   • If you squash-merge, master will be ahead of develop (by the squash-merge commit). This means we’ll end up with merge conflicts at the following release!
   • example PR: #1396

4. Go to the release page on GitHub and create a release for a tag “v{VERSION}” (e.g., for version 2.1.3 the tag needs to be v2.1.3) to master branch. Copy the release notes into the description field!

   • example release: v2.0.0

5. You are almost done now! Go to https://circleci.com and monitor that tests for your newly-created tag passed and the job for pushing the pip package succeeded. CircleCI matches on the “v{VERSION}” tag to kick-start the release process.

   • example CI workflow: 2434

6. Take a break; wait until the new release shows up on PyPi.

Done done! Go and celebrate our hard work :)