This document outlines the process for releasing versions of the form $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH
.
We distinguish between two types of releases: regular and maintenance releases. Regular releases are releases of a new major or minor version as well as patches of the most recent release. Maintenance releases, on the other hand, are required for patches of older releases.
You should coordinate with the other maintainers on the release date, if possible. This date will be part of the release entry in CHANGELOG.md and it should match the dates of the remaining steps in the release process (including the date of the tag and the GitHub release). It is best if the maintainers are present during the release, so they can help ensure that the process is followed correctly and, in the case of a regular release, they are aware that they should not modify the master branch between merging the PR in step 1 and the PR in step 3.
This process also assumes that there will be no minor releases for old major releases.
We aim to cut a regular release every 3-4 months, approximately twice as frequent as major Bitcoin Core releases. Every second release should be published one month before the feature freeze of the next major Bitcoin Core release, allowing sufficient time to update the library in Core.
Perform these checks when reviewing the release PR (see below):
- Ensure
make distcheck
doesn't fail../autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-dev-mode && make distcheck
- Check installation with autotools:
dir=$(mktemp -d) ./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=$dir && make clean && make install && ls -RlAh $dir gcc -o ecdsa examples/ecdsa.c $(PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$dir/lib/pkgconfig pkg-config --cflags --libs libsecp256k1) -Wl,-rpath,"$dir/lib" && ./ecdsa
- Check installation with CMake:
dir=$(mktemp -d) build=$(mktemp -d) cmake -B $build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$dir && cmake --build $build && cmake --install $build && ls -RlAh $dir gcc -o ecdsa examples/ecdsa.c -I $dir/include -L $dir/lib*/ -l secp256k1 -Wl,-rpath,"$dir/lib",-rpath,"$dir/lib64" && ./ecdsa
- Use the
check-abi.sh
tool to verify that there are no unexpected ABI incompatibilities and that the version number and the release notes accurately reflect all potential ABI changes. To run this tool, theabi-dumper
andabi-compliance-checker
packages are required.tools/check-abi.sh
-
Open a PR to the master branch with a commit (using message
"release: prepare for $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH"
, for example) that- finalizes the release notes in CHANGELOG.md by
- adding a section for the release (make sure that the version number is a link to a diff between the previous and new version),
- removing the
[Unreleased]
section header, - ensuring that the release notes are not missing entries (check the
needs-changelog
label on github), and - including an entry for
### ABI Compatibility
if it doesn't exist,
- sets
_PKG_VERSION_IS_RELEASE
totrue
inconfigure.ac
, and, - if this is not a patch release,
- updates
_PKG_VERSION_*
and_LIB_VERSION_*
inconfigure.ac
, and - updates
project(libsecp256k1 VERSION ...)
and${PROJECT_NAME}_LIB_VERSION_*
inCMakeLists.txt
.
- updates
- finalizes the release notes in CHANGELOG.md by
-
Perform the sanity checks on the PR branch.
-
After the PR is merged, tag the commit, and push the tag:
RELEASE_COMMIT=<merge commit of step 1> git tag -s v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH -m "libsecp256k1 $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH" $RELEASE_COMMIT git push git@github.com:bitcoin-core/secp256k1.git v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH
-
Open a PR to the master branch with a commit (using message
"release cleanup: bump version after $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH"
, for example) that- sets
_PKG_VERSION_IS_RELEASE
tofalse
and increments_PKG_VERSION_PATCH
and_LIB_VERSION_REVISION
inconfigure.ac
, - increments the
$PATCH
component ofproject(libsecp256k1 VERSION ...)
and${PROJECT_NAME}_LIB_VERSION_REVISION
inCMakeLists.txt
, and - adds an
[Unreleased]
section header to the CHANGELOG.md.
If other maintainers are not present to approve the PR, it can be merged without ACKs.
- sets
-
Create a new GitHub release with a link to the corresponding entry in CHANGELOG.md.
-
Send an announcement email to the bitcoin-dev mailing list.
Note that bug fixes need to be backported only to releases for which no compatible release without the bug exists.
- If there's no maintenance branch
$MAJOR.$MINOR
, create one:git checkout -b $MAJOR.$MINOR v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$((PATCH - 1)) git push git@github.com:bitcoin-core/secp256k1.git $MAJOR.$MINOR
- Open a pull request to the
$MAJOR.$MINOR
branch that- includes the bug fixes,
- finalizes the release notes similar to a regular release,
- increments
_PKG_VERSION_PATCH
and_LIB_VERSION_REVISION
inconfigure.ac
and the$PATCH
component ofproject(libsecp256k1 VERSION ...)
and${PROJECT_NAME}_LIB_VERSION_REVISION
inCMakeLists.txt
(with commit message"release: bump versions for $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH"
, for example).
- Perform the sanity checks on the PR branch.
- After the PRs are merged, update the release branch, tag the commit, and push the tag:
git checkout $MAJOR.$MINOR && git pull git tag -s v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH -m "libsecp256k1 $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH" git push git@github.com:bitcoin-core/secp256k1.git v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH
- Create a new GitHub release with a link to the corresponding entry in CHANGELOG.md.
- Send an announcement email to the bitcoin-dev mailing list.
- Open PR to the master branch that includes a commit (with commit message
"release notes: add $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH"
, for example) that adds release notes to CHANGELOG.md.