Release v4.1.0

[jameslamb]

Release checklist:

Copied from #5952, with a few changes.

before merge

• Update VERSION.txt number.
• Update version in Appveyor config file.
• Update version in configure file of R-package: /gha run r-configure.
• Change development.mode from unreleased to release in pkgdown config file.
• Update version in python-package/pyproject.toml
• Add release branch to RTD versions, trigger a new build, check docs
• All docs for new behavior have Sphinx versionadded:: annotations (docs on those)
• All new parameters in config.h have *New in version {version}* comments added
  • daa0400
• Run the valgrind checks with /gha run r-valgrind (docs link)
• manually test Python and R packages on M1/M2 Mac

PRs that should be merged before releasing:

None.

after merge

• Push commit with v* tag to trigger GitHubRelease action at Azure Pipelines.
• Add release notes from release-drafter to the automatically-created GitHub release, convert it from Draft to published.
• Update stable tag at GitHub.
• Add new tag to RTD versions and trigger a new build.
• [ ] Upload release to CRAN.
  • ⚠️ blocked:
    • Release v4.0.0 #5952 (comment)
    • [R-package] v4.0.0 CRAN submission issues #5987
• Remove the release branch from RTD versions
• Upload release to PyPI.
• [ ] Update cran-comments.md when new release is accepted on CRAN.
  • ⚠️ blocked:
    • Release v4.0.0 #5952 (comment)
    • [R-package] v4.0.0 CRAN submission issues #5987
• Upload release to NuGet.
• Update version and commit hash in Homebrew formula (docs)
• put up another PR incrementing development version here in GitHub
  • (e.g. bump development version to 4.0.0.99 #5975)

Notes for Reviewers

I believe this should be v4.1.0 instead of v4.0.0 because of the addition of position-bias correction for learning-to-rank: #5929.

This release of the R package will not be published to CRAN, as #5987 has still not been resolved. I'll prioritize that and maybe we'll be able to release the next version to CRAN.

[jameslamb]

/gha run r-valgrind

Workflow R valgrind tests has been triggered! 🚀
https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/actions/runs/6079669190

Status: success ✔️.

[jameslamb]

Add release branch to RTD versions, trigger a new build, check docs

✅ docs built successfully: https://readthedocs.org/projects/lightgbm/builds/21819866/

✅ and look good to me: https://lightgbm.readthedocs.io/en/release-v4.1.0/

[jameslamb]

manually test Python and R packages on M1/M2 Mac

The R package passed on an M1 Mac Mini: https://mac.r-project.org/macbuilder/results/1689263124-d89c2bc709b122ea/.

[jameslamb]

I will test the Python package on my M2 mac laptop tonight. If that passes, then I think this is ready to release!

@shiyu1994 @guolinke @jmoralez Could you please review this and approve if you agree with releasing the current state of master as v4.1.0?

[jameslamb]

Tested the Python package on my M2 Mac laptop today.

I had to run without OpenMP support (a documented issue in #4229 and #5764), but otherwise LightGBM compiled successfully and the Python tests passed. I'll try to work on those issues for the next release.

So with that.... I think we are ready to release!

@jmoralez since this has been up for a couple days and since both @guolinke and @shiyu1994 have approved, I won't wait for your approval... I'll merge this later today, once CI passes unless we hear any objections from you before then.

[jameslamb]

Thanks everyone! I'll merge this and start on the other release tasks.

Please don't merge anything else for the next few hours...so the automatic changelog won't get corrupted.

[jameslamb]

Ran the following to create the v4.1.0 tag and update the stable tag.

git fetch upstream --tags
git tag -d stable
git push upstream :refs/tags/stable
git tag stable v4.1.0
git push upstream stable v4.1.0

(NOTE: I alias this repo to upstream and my fork to origin in my git settings)

https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/tags

That triggered an Azure DevOps build which should create the release automatically: https://dev.azure.com/lightgbm-ci/lightgbm-ci/_build/results?buildId=15169&view=results. This takes around 90 minutes (because of the QEMU CI job).

NOTE: I messed this up last time. In v4.0.0, I directly published the release-drafter release. That's why that one has the author as release-drafter

... while all the others have @guolinke .

Sorry about that! I won't make that mistake again.

[jameslamb]

Add release notes from release-drafter to the automatically-created GitHub release, convert it from Draft to published.

This is done. The release is now officially up here on GitHub, and all artifacts from Azure DevOps have been attached to it.

https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/releases/tag/v4.1.0

[jameslamb]

Add new tag to RTD versions and trigger a new build.

Remove the release branch from RTD versions

This is done.

Passing build: https://readthedocs.org/projects/lightgbm/builds/21891719/

Docs: https://lightgbm.readthedocs.io/en/v4.1.0/

[jameslamb]

put up another PR incrementing development version here in GitHub

Put up #6090

[jameslamb]

Uploaded v4.1.0 wheels and sdist to PyPI 😁

https://pypi.org/project/lightgbm/4.1.0/

https://pypi.org/project/lightgbm/4.1.0/#files

[jameslamb]

Upload release to NuGet.

This is done

https://www.nuget.org/packages/LightGBM/4.1.0

[jameslamb]

update version and commit hash in Homebrew formula

Someone else already put up a PR for this: Homebrew/homebrew-core#142052

[jameslamb]

I think all tasks are complete, and this release is done!

Thanks so much for the help everyone, and especially @shiyu1994 for the suggestion. I'm very happy that we might start doing smaller, more frequent releases of LightGBM, and I think the project's users will be too 😁

[github-actions]

This pull request has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity since it was closed. To start a new related discussion, open a new issue at https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/issues including a reference to this.