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- Release Procedures

# Release Procedures

The current release procedure for Astropy involves a combination of an automated release script and some manual steps. Future versions will automate more of the process, if not all.

## Release Procedure

The automated portion of the Astropy release procedure uses zest.releaser to create the tag and update the version. zest.releaser is extendable through hook functions–Astropy already includes a couple hook functions to modify the default behavior, but future releases may be further automated through the implementation of additional hook functions. In order to use the hooks, Astropy itself must be installed alongside zest.releaser. It is recommended to create a virtualenv specifically for this purpose.

This may seem like a lot of steps, but most of them won’t be necessary to repeat for each release. The advantage of using an automated or semi-automated procedure is that ensures a consistent release process each time.

> 1. Ensure you have a GPG key pair available for when git needs to sign the tag you create for the release. See Creating a GPG Signing Key and a Signed Tag for more on this.

> 2. Update the list of contributors in the `creditsandlicense.rst` file. The easiest way to check this is do:

>        $ git shortlog -s

>    And just add anyone from that list who isn’t already credited.

> 3. Install virtualenv if you don’t already have it. See the linked virtualenv documentation for details. Also, make sure that you have cython installed, as you will need it to generate the .c files needed for the release.

> 4. Create and activate a virtualenv:

>        $ virtualenv --system-site-packages astropy-release
>        $ source astropy-release/bin/activate

> 5. Obtain a clean version of the Astropy repository. That is, one where you don’t have any intermediate build files. Either use a fresh `git clone` or do `git clean -dfx`.

> 6. Be sure you’re the “master” branch or, for a bug fix release, on the appropriate bug fix branch. For example, if releasing version 0.2.2 make sure to:

>        $ git checkout v0.2.x

> 7. Now install Astropy into the virtualenv:

>        $ python setup.py install

>    This is necessary for two reasons. First, the entry points for the releaser scripts need to be available, and these are in the Astropy package. Second, the build process will generate .c files from the Cython .pyx files, and the .c files are necessary for the source distribution.

> 8. Install zest.releaser into the virtualenv; use `--upgrade --force` to ensure that the latest version is installed in the virtualenv (if you’re running a csh variant make sure to run `rehash` afterwards too):

>        $ pip install zest.releaser==3.49 --upgrade --force

>    Note

>    zest.releaser > 3.49 has a still open issue that prevents our release code from correctly updating the `VERSION` variable in our `setup.py`; see zestsoftware/zest.releaser#62.

> 9. Ensure that all changes to the code have been committed, then start the release by running:

>        $ fullrelease

> 10. You will be asked to enter the version to be released. Press enter to accept the default (which will normally be correct) or enter a specific version string. A diff will then be shown of CHANGES.rst and setup.py showing that a release date has been added to the changelog, and that the version has been updated in setup.py. Enter ‘Y’ when asked to commit these changes.

> 11. You will then be shown the command that will be run to tag the release. Enter ‘Y’ to confirm and run the command.

> 12. When asked “Check out the tag (for tweaks or pypi/distutils server upload)” enter ‘N’: zest.releaser does not offer enough control yet over how the register and upload are performed so we will do this manually until the release scripts have been improved.

> 13. You will be asked to enter a new development version. Normally the next logical version will be selected–press enter to accept the default, or enter a specific version string. Do not add ”.dev” to the version, as this will be appended automatically (ignore the message that says ”.dev0 will be appended”–it will actually be ”.dev” without the 0). For example, if the just-released version was “0.1” the default next version will be “0.2”. If we want the next version to be, say “0.1.1”, or “1.0”, then that must be entered manually.

> 14. You will be shown a diff of CHANGES.rst showing that a new section has been added for the new development version, and showing that the version has been updated in setup.py. Enter ‘Y’ to commit these changes.

> 15. When asked to push the changes to a remote repository, enter ‘Y’. This should complete the portion of the process that’s automated at this point.

> 16. Check out the tag of the released version. For example:

>         $ git checkout v0.1

> 17. Create the source distribution by doing:

>         $ python setup.py sdist

>     Copy the produced `.tar.gz` somewhere and verify that you can unpack it, build it, and get all the tests to pass. It would be best to create a new virtualenv in which to do this.

> 18. Register the release on PyPI with:

>         $ python setup.py register

> 19. Upload the source distribution to PyPI; this is preceded by re-running the sdist command, which is necessary for the upload command to know which distribution to upload:

>         $ python setup.py sdist upload --sign

> 20. Go to https://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=pkg_edit&name=astropy and ensure that only the most recent releases in each actively maintained release line are not marked hidden. For example, if v0.3.1 was just released, v0.3 should be hidden. This is so that users only find the latest bugfix releases.

>     Do not enabled “Auto-hide old releases” as that may hide bugfix releases from older release lines that we may still want to make available.

> 21. Update the “stable” branch to point to the new stable release For example:

>         $ git checkout stable
>         $ git reset --hard v0.1
>         $ git push origin stable --force

> 22. Update Readthedocs so that it builds docs for the corresponding github tag. Also verify that the `stable` Readthedocs version builds correctly for the new version (it should trigger automatically once you’ve done the previous step.)

> 23. If this was a major/minor release (not a bug fix release) create a bug fix branch for this line of release. That is, if the version just released was “v<major>.<minor>.0”, create bug fix branch with the name “v<major>.<minor>.x”. Starting from the commit tagged as the release, just checkout a new branch and push it to the remote server. For example, after releasing version 0.3, do:

>         $ git checkout -b v0.3.x

>     Then edit `setup.py` so that the `VERSION` variable is `'0.3.1.dev'`, and commit that change. Then, do:

>         $ git push upstream v0.3.x

> > Note

> > > You may need to replace `upstream` here with `astropy` or whatever remote name you use for the main astropy repository.

> > The purpose of this branch is for creating bug fix releases like “0.3.1” and “0.3.2”, while allowing development of new features to continue in the master branch. Only changesets that fix bugs without making significant API changes should be merged to the bug fix branches.

> 24. Update astropy/astropy-website for the new version. Two files need to be updated: `index.rst` has two tags near the top specifying the current release, and the `docs.rst` file should be updated by putting the previous release in as an older version, and updating the “latest developer version” link to point to the new release.
> 25. Run the `upload_script.py` script in `astropy-website` to update the actual web site.

### Modifications for a beta/release candidate release

For major releases with a lot of changes, we sometimes do beta and/or release candidates to have a chance to catch significant bugs before the true release. If the release you are performing is this kind of pre-release, some of the above steps need to be modified. The primary difference is that these releases go on the http://testpypi.python.org server instead of the regular PyPI. The testpypi server provides a place to test the release and host it, but never appears anywhere on the regular server. The price is that testpypi is not guaranteed to be up long-term, but for short-term pre-releases, this is no problem.

The primary modifications to the release procedure are:

- When prompted for a version number (step #13), you will need to manually enter something like “1.0b1” or “1.0rc1”. You should follow this numbering scheme (`x.yb#` or `x.y.zrc#`), as it will ensure the release is ordered “before” the main release by various automated tools.
- On steps #18 and #19, where you register and upload to PyPI, it is important that you add the option `-r https://testpypi.python.org/pypi`. This ensures the release information and files are sent to the test server instead of the real PyPI server. This will probably require you to set up a `~/.pypirc` file appropriate for the testpypi server. See https://wiki.python.org/moin/TestPyPI for more on how to do this.
- Do not do step #20 or later, as those are tasks for an actual release.

Note

`~/.pypirc` files necessary for uploading to the testpypi server require you to include your password to be able to manage to do `register` properly. This can be insecure, because it means you have to put your PyPI password in a plain-text file. So you’ll want to set the `~/.pypirc` file permissions to be quite restrictive, use a temporary PyPI password just for doing releases, or some other measure to ensure your password remains secure.

## Maintaining Bug Fix Releases

Astropy releases, as recommended for most Python projects, follows a <major>.<minor>.<micro> version scheme, where the “micro” version is also known as a “bug fix” release. Bug fix releases should not change any user- visible interfaces. They should only fix bugs on the previous major/minor release and may also refactor internal APIs or include omissions from previous releases–that is, features that were documented to exist but were accidentally left out of the previous release. They may also include changes to docstrings that enhance clarity but do not describe new features (e.g., more examples, typo fixes, etc).

Bug fix releases are typically managed by maintaining one or more bug fix branches separate from the master branch (the release procedure below discusses creating these branches). Typically, whenever an issue is fixed on the Astropy master branch a decision must be made whether this is a fix that should be included in the Astropy bug fix release. Usually the answer to this question is “yes”, though there are some issues that may not apply to the bug fix branch. For example, it is not necessary to backport a fix to a new feature that did not exist when the bug fix branch was first created. New features are never merged into the bug fix branch–only bug fixes; hence the name.

In rare cases a bug fix may be made directly into the bug fix branch without going into the master branch first. This may occur if a fix is made to a feature that has been removed or rewritten in the development version and no longer has the issue being fixed. However, depending on how critical the bug is it may be worth including in a bug fix release, as some users can be slow to upgrade to new major/micro versions due to API changes.

Issues are assigned to an Astropy release by way of the Milestone feature in the GitHub issue tracker. At any given time there are at least two versions under development: The next major/minor version, and the next bug fix release. For example, at the time of writing there are two release milestones open: v0.2.2 and v0.3.0. In this case, v0.2.2 is the next bug fix release and all issues that should include fixes in that release should be assigned that milestone. Any issues that implement new features would go into the v0.3.0 milestone–this is any work that goes in the master branch that should not be backported. For a more detailed set of guidelines on using milestones, see Using Milestones and Labels.

### Backporting fixes from master

Most fixes are backported using the `git cherry-pick` command, which applies the diff from a single commit like a patch. For the sake of example, say the current bug fix branch is ‘v0.2.x’, and that a bug was fixed in master in a commit `abcd1234`. In order to backport the fix, simply checkout the v0.2.x branch (it’s also good to make sure it’s in sync with the main Astropy repository) and cherry-pick the appropriate commit:

    $ git checkout v0.2.x
    $ git pull upstream v0.2.x
    $ git cherry-pick abcd1234

Sometimes a cherry-pick does not apply cleanly, since the bug fix branch represents a different line of development. This can be resolved like any other merge conflict: Edit the conflicted files by hand, and then run `git commit` and accept the default commit message. If the fix being cherry-picked has an associated changelog entry in a separate commit make sure to backport that as well.

What if the issue required more than one commit to fix? There are a few possibilities for this. The easiest is if the fix came in the form of a pull request that was merged into the master branch. Whenever GitHub merges a pull request it generates a merge commit in the master branch. This merge commit represents the full difference of all the commits in the pull request combined. What this means is that it is only necessary to cherry-pick the merge commit (this requires adding the `-m 1` option to the cherry-pick command). For example, if `5678abcd` is a merge commit:

    $ git checkout v0.2.x
    $ git pull upstream v0.2.x
    $ git cherry-pick -m 1 5678abcd

In fact, because Astropy emphasizes a pull request-based workflow, this is the most common scenario for backporting bug fixes, and the one requiring the least thought. However, if you’re not dealing with backporting a fix that was not brought in as a pull request, read on.

See also

Merge commits and cherry picks for further explanation of the cherry-pick command and how it works with merge commits.

If not cherry-picking a merge commit there are still other options for dealing with multiple commits. The simplest, though potentially tedious, is to simply run the cherry-pick command once for each commit in the correct order. However, as of Git 1.7.2 it is possible to merge a range of commits like so:

    $ git cherry-pick 1234abcd..56789def

This works fine so long as the commits you want to pick are actually congruous with each other. In most cases this will be the case, though some bug fixes will involve followup commits that need to back backported as well. Most bug fixes will have an issues associated with it in the issue tracker, so make sure to reference all commits related to that issue in the commit message. That way it’s harder for commits that need to be backported from getting lost.

### Making fixes directly to the bug fix branch

As mentioned earlier in this section, in some cases a fix only applies to a bug fix release, and is not applicable in the mainline development. In this case there are two choices:

1. An Astropy developer with commit access to the main Astropy repository may check out the bug fix branch and commit and push your fix directly.
2. Preferable: You may also make a pull request through GitHub against the bug fix branch rather than against master. Normally when making a pull request from a branch on your fork to the main Astropy repository GitHub compares your branch to Astropy’s master. If you look on the left-hand side of the pull request page, under “base repo: astropy/astropy” there is a drop-down list labeled “base branch: master”. You can click on this drop-down and instead select the bug fix branch (“v0.2.x” for example). Then GitHub will instead compare your fix against that branch, and merge into that branch when the PR is accepted.

### Preparing the bug fix branch for release

There are two primary steps that need to be taken before creating a bug fix release. The rest of the procedure is the same as any other release as described in Release Procedure (although be sure to provide the right version number).

1. Any existing fixes to the issues assigned to the current bug fix release milestone, or labeled with the relevant “backport-x.y.z” label must be merged into the bug fix branch.
2. The Astropy changelog must be updated to list all issues–especially user-visible issues–fixed for the current release. The changelog should be updated in the master branch, and then merged into the bug fix branch. Most issues should already have changelog entries for them. But it’s typical to forget this, so if doesn’t exist yet please add one in the process of backporting. See Updating and Maintaining the Changelog for more details.

To aid in this process there is a script called `suggest_backports.py` at https://gist.github.com/embray/4497178. The script is not perfect and still needs a little work, but it will get most of the work done. For example, if the current bug fix branch is called ‘v0.2.x’ run it like so:

    $ suggest_backports.py astropy astropy v0.2.x -f backport.sh

This will search GitHub for all issues assigned to the next bug fix release milestone that’s associated with the given bug fix branch (‘v0.2.2’ for example), find the commits that fix those issues, and will generate a shell script called `backport.sh` containing all the `git cherry-pick` commands to backport all those fixes.

The `suggest_backports.py` script will typically take a couple minutes to run, but once it’s done simply execute the generated script from within your local clone of the Astropy repository:

    $ ./backport.sh

This will checkout the appropriate bug fix branch (‘v0.2.x’ in this example), do a `git pull upstream v0.2.x` to make sure it’s up to date, and then start doing cherry-picks into the bug fix branch.

Note

As discussed earlier, cherry-pick may result in merge conflicts. If this occurs, the `backport.sh` script will exit and the conflict should be resolved manually, followed by running `git commit`. To resume the `backport.sh` script after the merge conflict, it is currently necessary to edit the script to either remove or comment out the `git cherry-pick` commands that already ran successfully.

The author of the script hopes to improve it in the future to add `git rebase` like functionality, such that running `backport.sh --continue` or `backport.sh --skip` will be possible in such cases.

Warning

It has also been noted that the `suggest_backports.py` script is not perfect, and can either miss issues that need to be backported, and in some cases can report false positives.

It’s always a good idea before finalizing a bug fix release to look on GitHub through the list of closed issues in the release milestone and check that each one has a fix in the bug fix branch. Usually a quick way to do this is for each issue to run:

    $ git log --oneline <bugfix-branch> | grep #<issue>

Most fixes will mention their related issue in the commit message, so this tends to be pretty reliable. Some issues won’t show up in the commit log, however, as their fix is in a separate pull request. Usually GitHub makes this clear by cross-referencing the issue with its PR. A future version of the `suggest_backports.py` script will perform this check automatically.

Finally, not all issues assigned to a release milestone need to be fixed before making that release. Usually, in the interest of getting a release with existing fixes out within some schedule, it’s best to triage issues that won’t be fixed soon to a new release milestone. If the upcoming bug fix release is ‘v0.2.2’, then go ahead and create a ‘v0.2.3’ milestone and reassign to it any issues that you don’t expect to be fixed in time for ‘v0.2.2’.

## Creating a GPG Signing Key and a Signed Tag

One of the main steps in performing a release is to create a tag in the git repository representing the exact state of the repository that represents the version being released. For Astropy we will always use signed tags: A signed tag is annotated with the name and e-mail address of the signer, a date and time, and a checksum of the code in the tag. This information is then signed with a GPG private key and stored in the repository.

Using a signed tag ensures the integrity of the contents of that tag for the future. On a distributed VCS like git, anyone can create a tag of Astropy called “0.1” in their repository–and where it’s easy to monkey around even after the tag has been created. But only one “0.1” will be signed by one of the Astropy project coordinators and will be verifiable with their public key.

### Generating a public/private key pair

Git uses GPG to created signed tags, so in order to perform an Astropy release you will need GPG installed and will have to generated a signing key pair. Most *NIX installations come with GPG installed by default (as it is used to verify the integrity of system packages). If you don’t have the `gpg` command, consult the documentation for your system on how to install it.

For OSX, GPG can be installed from MacPorts using `sudo port install gnupg`.

To create a new public/private key pair, simply run:

    $ gpg --gen-key

This will take you through a few interactive steps. For the encryption and expiry settings, it should be safe to use the default settings (I use a key size of 4096 just because what does a couple extra kilobytes hurt?) Enter your full name, preferably including your middle name or middle initial, and an e-mail address that you expect to be active for a decent amount of time. Note that this name and e-mail address must match the info you provide as your git configuration, so you should either choose the same name/e-mail address when you create your key, or update your git configuration to match the key info. Finally, choose a very good pass phrase that won’t be easily subject to brute force attacks.

If you expect to use the same key for some time, it’s good to make a backup of both your public and private key:

    $ gpg --export --armor > public.key
    $ gpg --export-secret-key --armor > private.key

Back up these files to a trusted location–preferably a write-once physical medium that can be stored safely somewhere. One may also back up their keys to a trusted online encrypted storage, though some might not find that secure enough–it’s up to you and what you’re comfortable with.

### Add your public key to a keyserver

Now that you have a public key, you can publish this anywhere you like–in your e-mail, in a public code repository, etc. You can also upload it to a dedicated public OpenPGP keyserver. This will store the public key indefinitely (until you manually revoke it), and will be automatically synced with other keyservers around the world. That makes it easy to retrieve your public key using the gpg command-line tool.

To do this you will need your public key’s keyname. To find this enter:

    $ gpg --list-keys

This will output something like:

    /path/to/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
    ---------------------------------------------
    pub   4096D/1234ABCD 2012-01-01
    uid                  Your Name <your_email>
    sub   4096g/567890EF 2012-01-01

The 8 digit hex number on the line starting with “pub”–in this example the “1234ABCD” unique keyname for your public key. To push it to a keyserver enter:

    $ gpg --send-keys 1234ABCD

But replace the 1234ABCD with the keyname for your public key. Most systems come configured with a sensible default keyserver, so you shouldn’t have to specify any more than that.

### Create a tag

Now test creating a signed tag in git. It’s safe to experiment with this–you can always delete the tag before pushing it to a remote repository:

    $ git tag -s v0.1 -m "Astropy version 0.1"

This will ask for the password to unlock your private key in order to sign the tag with it. Confirm that the default signing key selected by git is the correct one (it will be if you only have one key).

Once the tag has been created, you can verify it with:

    $ git tag -v v0.1

This should output something like:

    object e8e3e3edc82b02f2088f4e974dbd2fe820c0d934
    type commit
    tag v0.1
    tagger Your Name <your_email> 1339779534 -0400

    Astropy version 0.1
    gpg: Signature made Fri 15 Jun 2012 12:59:04 PM EDT using DSA key ID 0123ABCD
    gpg: Good signature from "Your Name <your_email>"

You can use this to verify signed tags from any repository as long as you have the signer’s public key in your keyring. In this case you signed the tag yourself, so you already have your public key.

Note that if you are planning to do a release following the steps below, you will want to delete the tag you just created, because the release script does that for you. You can delete this tag by doing:

    $ git tag -d v0.1

## Creating a MacOS X Installer on a DMG

The `bdist_dmg` command can be used to create a `.dmg` disk image for MacOS X with a `.pkg` installer. In order to do this, you will need to ensure that you have the following dependencies installed:

- Numpy
- Sphinx
- bdist_mpkg

To create a `.dmg` file, run:

    python setup.py bdist_dmg

Note that for the actual release version, you should do this with the Python distribution from python.org (not e.g. MacPorts, EPD, etc.). The best way to ensure maximum compatibility is to make sure that Python and Numpy are installed into `/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework` using the latest stable `.dmg` installers available for those packages. In addition, the `.dmg` should be build on a MacOS 10.6 system, to ensure compatibility with 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.

Before distributing, you should test out an installation of Python, Numpy, and Astropy from scratch using the `.dmg` installers, preferably on a clean virtual machine.