Pack follows a 6 week release cadence, composed of 3 phases:
Our development flow is detailed in Development
5 business days prior to a scheduled release, we enter feature complete. A release branch (in the form release/<VERSION>) is created, and used for User Acceptance testing (UAT).
During this period, relevant changes may be merged into the release branch, based on assessment by the pack maintainers of the impact, effort and risk of including the changes. Any other change may get merged into main through the normal process, and will make it into the next release.
One of the maintainers is designated as the release manager. They communicate the release status to the working group meetings, schedule additional meetings with the pack maintainers as needed, and finalize the release. They also take care of whatever release needs may arise.
The release manager will:
- Create a github release, containing the artifacts, release notes, and a migration guide (if necessary), documenting breaking changes, and providing actions to migrate from prior versions.
- Tag the release branch as
v<version> - Merge the release branch into
main - Send out release notifications, if deemed necessary, on
- The cncf-buildpacks mailing list
For more information, see the release process RFC