Jenkins CI will build, publish and test every commit from master
Integration testing happens on a build that is a candidate for release.
If all goes well we tag the release and create a new release branch if needed.
Depending on the stability and feedback from the field, we might promote the build to beta and stable channels.

Jenkins has all the jobs to do the release -- there is no need to perform any of the release tasks on a build/dev machine.

Tagging a new release

To create a new release build, run a new build from release/tag pipeline in Jenkins. Be sure to use the correct branch for the release. New major/minor release will always be run from master, and patch releases will come from a previous release branch.

The Jenkins release/tag takes as input the version number to be released and the commit hash to tag. The job will will automatically tag the release and create the release branch. Once a new release branch is created or update, jenkins should perform the final release build as part of the rook/rook pipeline as usual.

The release branch is not by default created as "protected", so remember to go to the branch settings and mark it as "protected". The protection settings should be similar to that of the previous release branches.

Authoring release notes

Every release should have comprehensive and well written release notes published. While work is ongoing for a milestone, contributors should be keeping the pending release notes up to date, so that should be used as a starting point.

When the release is nearing completion, start a new release "draft" by going to https://github.com/rook/rook/releases/new and start with the content from the pending release notes. Fill in the rest of the sections to fully capture the themes, accomplishments and caveats for the release.

Ensure that you only click Save draft until the release is complete, after which you can then click Publish release to make them public.

Promoting a release

To promote a release run the release/promote pipeline in Jenkins. As input it will take the version number to promote and the the release channel.

NOTE: Until https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-41929 is fixed, pipeline builds for a new branch will run with no params. The workaround now is to run promote the second time and it should prompt for version number and channel correctly.

Release Artifacts

Each build from master has the following release artifacts:

binaries and yaml
containers

Binaries

Binaries go to an S3 bucket rook-release (and https://release.rook.io) and have the following layout:

/releases
    /master
         /v0.3.0
             (binaries)
         /v0.3.0-2-g787822d
             (binaries)
         /v0.3.0-2-g770ebbc
               darwin_amd64/rookctl
               linux_amd64/rookctl
               linux_arm/rookctl
               linux_arm64/rookctl
               windows_amd64/rookctl
               version
         /current
             (binaries)

Containers

Containers go to docker hub and quay.io where we have the following repos:

rook/rook
rook/toolbox