Release Management

In order to release a new version of an application, it is required to combine branching and tagging techniques.

Release Pull Request

• Check out a release branch from the develop branch. Naming for the branch should follow the pattern release/<version number> e.g. release/1.0.0.

• Open a pull request with the release branch as origin and the main branch as destination. Naming for the pull request should follow the pattern Release - <version number> e.g. Release - 1.0.0.

• The description of the pull request must abide by this template:

  

  • On the first line, include the link to the GitHub milestone or the release on the project management tool to make it easier for reviewers to get the complete requirements:

    # GitHub milestone
    https://github.com/nimblehq/git-templates/milestone/41?closed=1
        
    # Shortcut
    https://app.shortcut.com/acme/label/12345
    

  • Features: provide the list of features in the release.
  • Chores: provide the list of chores in the release.
  • Bugs: provide the list of bugs fixes in the release.

• Once the pull request is approved and the test suite has run successfully, merge the release branch.

Tagging

Once code is merged into the main branch, we keep track of versions by using Git tags.

• Add a tag locally corresponding to the version released from the main branch e.g. git tag -a 1.0.0.

• Add a changelog in the commit message for the tag following this convention when entering the interactive mode:

  • List changes as a bullet point list

  • Group changes into sections for each issue type:

    Features
    - [ch682] As a user I can view the list of job positions (#125)
    - [ch683] As a user I can view the details of a job position (#128)
          
    Bugs
    - [ch688] Fix: Login with LinkedIn (#126)
          
    Chores
    - [ch678] Set up staging environment (#127)
    

    Having the pull request ID is preferred but not compulsory. On GitHub, the ID is parsed and linked to the pull request making is useful.

• Push the newly added tag to the remote with git push --tags.