Feature Release Process

This document describes the process for creating a major or minor feature release of Cilium.

On Freeze date

1. Fork a new release branch from master:

   git checkout master; git pull
   git checkout -b v1.2
   git push
   

2. Protect the branch using the GitHub UI to disallow direct push and require merging via PRs with proper reviews.

3. Replace the contents of the CODEOWNERS file with the following to reduce code reviews to essential approvals:

   * @cilium/janitors
   api/ @cilium/api
   pkg/apisocket/ @cilium/api
   pkg/monitor/payload @cilium/api
   pkg/policy/api/ @cilium/api
   pkg/proxy/accesslog @cilium/api
   

4. Commit changes, open a pull request against the new v1.2 branch, and get the pull request merged

   git checkout -b pr/prepare-v1.2
   git add [...]
   git commit
   git push
   

5. Follow the Release Candidate Process to release v1.2.0-rc1.

6. Create the following GitHub labels:

   1. backport-pending/1.2
   2. backport-done/1.2
   3. backport/1.2
   4. needs-backport/1.2

7. Prepare the master branch for the next development cycle:

   git checkout master; git pull
   

8. Update the VERSION file to contain v1.2.90

9. Add the VERSION file using git add and create & merge a PR titled Prepare for 1.3.0 development.

10. Update the release branch on

    Jenkins to be tested on every change and Nightly.

11. (Only 1.0 minor releases) Tag newest 1.0.x Docker image as v1.0-stable and push it to Docker Hub. This will ensure that Kops uses latest 1.0 release by default.

For the final release

1. Follow the Generic Release Process to create the final replace and replace X.Y.0-rcX with X.Y.0.