Release checklist

Checklist for releasing MediaWiki versions. Also see MediaWiki 1.19/Roadmap/Deployment checklist - at some point we should create a generalized deployment checklist, since we do them more and more often.

Pre-release preparation

• Notify wikitech-l about impending branch with reasonable warning (1 full business day)
• Branch REL1_XX
• Bugmeister: File blocking bug in Bugzilla
• Developers: Fix all blocking bugs for that release in trunk, tagging to merge with "1.XX" tag in Code Review
  • Make sure all commits also include updates to RELEASE-NOTES appropriate to the version
• Reviewers: Review all changes tagged for that release, marking "ok"
• Reviewers: Merge all changes tagged for that release into the REL1_XX branch
• Reviewers: Review all changes in the REL1_XX branch, marking "ok"

Release candidate for a new major version

• Update RELEASE-NOTES, HISTORY, CREDITS and includes/DefaultSettings.php in branch and trunk
• Run rg-vuln-check
• Tag REL1_XX_0RC1
• Run tools/make-release/make-release 1.xx.0rc1
• Upload files to dataset2:/data/xmldatadumps/public/mediawiki
• Send email to mediawiki-announce, mediawiki-l, wikitech-l, summarising the changes in this major release (including i18n). Reply-To: mediawiki-l.
• Edit Template:MediaWiki News
• Add versions to bugzilla -- new alpha version (1.x-svn) and new RC
• Add new branch to ExtensionDistributor
• Edit irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki topic

Wait for comments...

Release a stable 1.xx.0 version

• Update RELEASE-NOTES and includes/DefaultSettings.php in the branch
• Run rg-vuln-check
• Tag REL1_XX_0
• Run tools/make-release/make-release 1.xx.0 1.xx.0rc1
• Upload files to dataset2:/data/xmldatadumps/public/mediawiki
• Send email to mediawiki-announce, mediawiki-l, wikitech-l. Reply-To: mediawiki-l.
• Update $wgExtDistBranches in CommonSettings.php
• Check out the new branch in /mnt/upload6/private/ExtensionDistributor/mw-snapshot/branches and chown -R extdist
• Edit irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki topic
• Add version to bugzilla
• Update WikiMatrix
• Release a TechBlog entry

MediaWiki.org updates

(this may also be done by an administrator of this wiki; Current versions lists all the version templates with edit links)

• Announce new version: Template:MediaWiki News
• Update the new version: Template:MW stable release number, Template:MW stable release date, Template:MW stable release svn, Template:MW stable branch number, Template:MW stable branch svn
• Update the legacy version: Template:MW legacy release number, Template:MW legacy release date, Template:MW legacy release svn, Template:MW legacy branch number

(note: the links below are automatically generated, refresh this page once you modified the templates above)

• Create Release notes/1.19 with the content of the RELEASE-NOTES file.
• Remove all {{Future}} from pages that are in Category:Due in v1.19.0 and delete that category.

Release a minor version

• Update RELEASE-NOTES and includes/DefaultSettings.php in the branch
• Tag REL1_XX_Y
• Run tools/make-release/make-release 1.xx.y
• Upload files to dataset2:/data/xmldatadumps/public/mediawiki
• Send email to mediawiki-announce, mediawiki-l, wikitech-l. Reply-To: mediawiki-l.
• Edit pages on mediawiki.org: Template:MediaWiki News, Template:MW stable release number, Template:MW stable release date, Template:MW stable release svn
• Add versions to bugzilla
• Update WikiMatrix
• Edit irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki topic