Automate release process

[sjohnr]

This issue lists the required tasks for automating the release. I've organized the release process (see RELEASE.adoc) into four stages:

1. Prepare release - This stage updates dependencies. It could be performed up to a week prior to the release.
2. Perform release - This stage pushes artifacts to Maven Central and creates a github release.
3. Prepare next iteration - This stage performs milestone management.
4. Announce release - This stage let's the team and/or community know the release is complete. Some of the steps may not be automated.

Prepare Release

inputs:

• nextVersion - Version being released

tasks:

• Automate opening issue to block release with reminders #11257
• Research whether dependabot is capable of upgrading our dependencies #10453
• Automate dependency upgrades #10454 (./gradlew updateDependencies -PupdateMode=GITHUB_ISSUE -PnextVersion=$nextVersion)
• check: build success

Perform Release

inputs:

• previousVersion - Version to delete on https://spring.io/projects/spring-security#learn
• nextVersion - Version being released

tasks:

• check: ensure all issues are closed in current milestone (./gradlew gitHubCheckMilestoneHasNoOpenIssues -PnextVersion=$nextVersion)
• Automate updating to release version in gradle.propertes #10455
• Automate updating to release version in antora.yml #11020
• Tag release after updating gradle.properties #11023
• Trigger CI from release automation #11022
• Wait for release to appear on Maven Central #10928 (./wait-for-done.sh $nextVersion)
• Automate tagging release version #10456
• generate changelog (./gradlew generateChangelog -PnextVersion=$nextVersion)
• Automate creating github release #10457
• Automate updating project page with latest release #11308
• Automate creation of backport label #11622

Prepare Next Iteration

inputs:

• previousVersion - Version just released
• nextVersion - Next milestone version

tasks:

• Automate creating next milestone #10458
• Automate closing previous milestone #10460
• Automate updating to next development version in gradle.properties #10461
• Automate updating to next development version in antora.yml #11021

Announce Release

inputs:

• nextVersion - Version being released

tasks:

• Automate spring-release notification on slack #11307

[sjohnr]

Note: Need to handle milestones being released to repo.spring.io/milestone vs repo1.maven.org/maven2 during the "wait for release to appear on Maven Central" step.

[sjohnr]

@eleftherias I added gh-11020 and gh-11021 for updating antora.yml, and gh-11022 as well as gh-11023 to handle triggering CI updates. These are the issues I encountered with the automation during the 6.0.0-M2 release.

[sjohnr]

Note: I've moved the open issues associated with release automation into the 6.0.x bucket to manage them all together. I will be creating a single issue for each maintenance branch that the automation is being backported to when adding all of this work to each respective branch.

[sjohnr]

Closing the epic as the currently planned work is completed. Some tasks remain undone and can be scheduled and worked as needed in the future.