How to Create a Release of OpenTelemetry Proto (for Maintainers Only)

Tagging the Release

Our release branches follow the naming convention of v<major>.<minor>.x, while the tags include the patch version v<major>.<minor>.<patch>. For example, the same branch v0.3.x would be used to create all v0.3 tags (e.g. v0.3.0, v0.3.1).

In this section upstream repository refers to the main opentelemetry-proto github repository.

Before any push to the upstream repository you need to create a personal access token.

1. Create the release branch and push it to GitHub:

   MAJOR=0 MINOR=3 PATCH=0 # Set appropriately for new release
   git checkout -b v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x main
   git push upstream v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x

2. Enable branch protection for the new branch, if you have admin access. Otherwise, let someone with admin access know that there is a new release branch.

   • Open the branch protection settings for the new branch, by following Github's instructions.

   • Copy the settings from a previous branch, i.e., check

     • Protect this branch
     • Require pull request reviews before merging
     • Require status checks to pass before merging
     • Include administrators

     Enable the following required status checks:

     • cla/linuxfoundation
     • ci/circleci: build

   • Uncheck everything else.

   • Click "Save changes".

3. For vMajor.Minor.x branch:

   • Create and push a tag:

   git checkout v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x
   git pull upstream v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x
   git tag -a v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH -m "Version $MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH"
   git push upstream v$MAJOR.$MINOR.$PATCH

Patch Release

All patch releases should include only bug-fixes, and must avoid adding/modifying the public APIs. To cherry-pick one commit use the following instructions:

• Create and push a tag:

COMMIT=1224f0a # Set the right commit hash.
git checkout -b cherrypick v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x
git cherry-pick -x $COMMIT
git commit -a -m "Cherry-pick commit $COMMIT"

• Go through PR review and merge it to GitHub v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x branch.

• Tag a new patch release when all commits are merged.

Announcement

Once deployment is done, go to Github release page, press Draft a new release to write release notes about the new release.

You can use git log upstream/v$MAJOR.$((MINOR-1)).x..upstream/v$MAJOR.$MINOR.x --graph --first-parent or the Github compare tool to view a summary of all commits since last release as a reference.

In addition, you can refer to CHANGELOG.md for a list of major changes since last release.

Update release versions in documentations and CHANGELOG files

After releasing is done, you need to update README.md and CHANGELOG.md.

Create a PR to mark the new release in CHANGELOG.md on main branch.