# Releasing

## Prerequisites

### JDK 8 and JDK 11

Releasing Akka requires running on JDK 11, but also having JDK 8
installed. The reason for this is that we want the Akka artifacts to be
usable with JRE 8, but also want to compile some classes with JDK11-specific
types.

In the future we might be able to update the build to work
without having JDK 8 installed, by using the `-release` option.

### MinGW

When releasing from Windows, you need MinGW and a gpg distribution such as Gpg4Win

### Git

Make sure you have set `core.autocrlf` to `false` in your `~/.gitconfig`,
otherwise git might convert line endings in some cases.

### Whitesource

Make sure you have the Lightbend Whitesource credentials configured in
your `~/.sbt/1.0/private-credentials.sbt`.

## Snapshot releases

Nightly snapshot releases are created from master and published to
https://repo.akka.io/snapshots by https://jenkins.akka.io:8498/job/akka-publish-nightly/

To create snapshot versions manually, use `sbt clean stampVersion publish`.
The release artifacts are created in `akka-*/target/repository` and can be
copied over to a maven server. If you have access, the Jenkins job at
https://jenkins.akka.io:8498/job/akka-publish-wip/ can be used to publish
a snapshot to https://repo.akka.io/snapshots from any branch.

## Release steps

* Check the instructions for `project/scripts/release`
* Do a `project/scripts/release <version>` dry run
* If all goes well, `project/scripts/release --real-run <version>`
* Log into sonatype, 'close' the staging repo.
* Test the artifacts by adding `resolvers += "Staging Repo" at "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/comtypesafe-xxxx"` to a test project
* If all is well, 'release' the staging repo.

## Announcing

* Prepare milestone on github:
 * go to the [Milestones tab](https://github.com/akka/akka/milestones)
 * move all open issues so that this milestone contains completed work only
 * close that milestone
 * create a new milestone for next patch version

* In case of a new minor release:
 * update the branch descriptions at CONTRIBUTING.md#branches-summary
 * write blog post for akka.io and lightbend.com

* Create an announcement as a PR against akka/akka.github.com .
  * credits can be generated with `scripts/authors.scala v2.3.5 v2.3.6`
  * also update the `latest` variable in `_config.yml`.

Now wait until all artifacts have been properly propagated. Then:

* Update `MiMa.latestPatchOf` and PR that change (`project/MiMa.scala`)

* Change the symbolic links from 'current': `ssh akkarepo@gustav.akka.io ./update-akka-current-version.sh <x.y.z>`

* Publish the release announcement
* Tweet about it
* Post about it on Discuss
* Post about it on Gitter

## Update references

Update the versions used in:

* https://github.com/akka/akka-samples
* https://github.com/akka/akka-quickstart-java.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-quickstart-scala.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-http-quickstart-java.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-http-quickstart-scala.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-distributed-workers-scala.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-grpc-quickstart-java.g8
* https://github.com/akka/akka-grpc-quickstart-scala.g8
* https://github.com/lightbend/reactive-platform-docs/blob/master/build.sbt (this populates https://developer.lightbend.com/docs/reactive-platform/2.0/supported-modules/index.html#akka)