pekko/RELEASING.md

Releasing

Create a new issue from the Release Train Issue Template:

$ sh ./scripts/create-release-issue.sh 0.x.y

Manually

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.

One Time GPG and sbt-pgp setup

If you have not set up GPG or used sbt-pgp on the release machine

• Check the sbt-pgp usage for any setup steps you may still need, for example:

sbt> set pgpReadOnly := false
sbt> pgp-cmd gen-key

• Check that signing works with sbt> publishLocalSigned

Mac

When releasing from MacOS you may want to use YubiKey or have MacGPG installed.

Windows

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.

Install Graphviz

Graphvis is needed for the scaladoc generation build task, which is part of the release.

Release script instructions

Make sure you have completed the setup in project/scripts/release.

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 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.

Releasing only updated docs

It is possible to release a revised documentation to the already existing release.

1. Create a new branch from a release tag. If a revised documentation is for the v2.6.4 release, then the name of the new branch should be docs/v2.6.4.
2. Add and commit version.sbt file that pins the version to the one that is being revised. Also set isSnapshot to false for the stable documentation links. For example:

   ThisBuild / version := "2.6.4"
   ThisBuild / isSnapshot := false
   

3. Make all of the required changes to the documentation.
4. Build documentation locally with:

   sbt akka-docs/paradoxBrowse
   

5. If the generated documentation looks good, send it to Gustav:

   sbt akka-docs/publishRsync
   

6. Do not forget to push the new branch back to GitHub.

Release steps

• Tag the release: git tag -am "Version 2.6.x" v2.6.x
• Do a project/scripts/release to build and release to sonatype
• 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.
• Push the release tag to github

Announcing

• Prepare milestone on github:

  • go to the Milestones tab
  • 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
  • Create a GitHub 'release' for the tag via https://github.com/akka/akka/releases with a link to the release notes

Update references

Update the versions used in:

• https://github.com/akka/akka-samples
• https://github.com/lightbend/lightbend-platform-docs/blob/master/docs/modules/getting-help/examples/build.sbt (this populates https://developer.lightbend.com/docs/lightbend-platform/introduction/getting-help/build-dependencies.html#_akka)

These are autoupdated by latest stable on maven central:

• 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-grpc-quickstart-java.g8
• https://github.com/akka/akka-grpc-quickstart-scala.g8