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Release Procedure

Our current policy for releasing is to aim for a bug-fix release every few weeks and a minor release every 2-3 months. The idea is to get fixes and new features out instead of trying to cram a ton of features into a release and by consequence taking a lot of time to make a new one.

The git commands assume the following remotes are setup:

  • origin: your own fork of the repository.
  • upstream: the pytest-dev/pytest official repository.

Preparing: Automatic Method

We have developed an automated workflow for releases, that uses GitHub workflows and is triggered by manually running the prepare-release-pr workflow on GitHub Actions.

The automation will decide the new version number based on the following criteria:

  • If the "major release" input is set to "yes", release a new major release (e.g. 7.0.0 -> 8.0.0)
  • If there are any .feature.rst or .breaking.rst files in the changelog directory, release a new minor release (e.g. 7.0.0 -> 7.1.0)
  • Otherwise, release a bugfix release (e.g. 7.0.0 -> 7.0.1)
  • If the "prerelease" input is set, append the string to the version number (e.g. 7.0.0 -> 8.0.0rc1), if "major" is set, and "prerelease" is set to rc1)

Bug-fix and minor releases

Bug-fix and minor releases are always done from a maintenance branch. First, consider double-checking the changelog directory to see if there are any breaking changes or new features.

For a new minor release, first create a new maintenance branch from main:

git fetch upstream
git branch 7.1.x upstream/main
git push upstream 7.1.x

Then, trigger the workflow with the following inputs:

  • branch: 7.1.x
  • major release: no
  • prerelease: empty

Or via the commandline using GitHub's cli:

gh workflow run prepare-release-pr.yml -f branch=7.1.x -f major=no -f prerelease=

Where 7.1.x is the maintenance branch for the 7.1 series. The automated workflow will publish a PR for a branch release-7.1.0.

Similarly, for a bug-fix release, use the existing maintenance branch and trigger the workflow with e.g. branch: 7.0.x to get a new release-7.0.1 PR.

Major releases

  1. Create a new maintenance branch from main:

    git fetch upstream
git branch 8.0.x upstream/main
git push upstream 8.0.x
  2. Trigger the workflow with the following inputs:
    • branch: 8.0.x
    • major release: yes
    • prerelease: empty

Or via the commandline:

gh workflow run prepare-release-pr.yml -f branch=8.0.x -f major=yes -f prerelease=

The automated workflow will publish a PR for a branch release-8.0.0.

At this point on, this follows the same workflow as other maintenance branches: bug-fixes are merged into main and ported back to the maintenance branch, even for release candidates.

Release candidates

To release a release candidate, set the "prerelease" input to the version number suffix to use. To release a 8.0.0rc1, proceed like under "major releases", but set:

  • branch: 8.0.x
  • major release: yes
  • prerelease: rc1

Or via the commandline:

gh workflow run prepare-release-pr.yml -f branch=8.0.x -f major=yes -f prerelease=rc1

The automated workflow will publish a PR for a branch release-8.0.0rc1.

A note about release candidates

During release candidates we can merge small improvements into the maintenance branch before releasing the final major version, however we must take care to avoid introducing big changes at this stage.

Preparing: Manual Method

Important: pytest releases must be prepared on Linux because the docs and examples expect to be executed on that platform.

To release a version MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, follow these steps:

  1. For major and minor releases, create a new branch MAJOR.MINOR.x from upstream/main and push it to upstream.

  2. Create a branch release-MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH from the MAJOR.MINOR.x branch.

    Ensure your are updated and in a clean working tree.

  3. Using tox, generate docs, changelog, announcements:

    $ tox -e release -- MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

    This will generate a commit with all the changes ready for pushing.

  4. Open a PR for the release-MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH branch targeting MAJOR.MINOR.x.

Releasing

Both automatic and manual processes described above follow the same steps from this point onward.

  1. After all tests pass and the PR has been approved, tag the release commit in the release-MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH branch and push it. This will publish to PyPI:

    git fetch upstream
git tag MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH upstream/release-MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
git push upstream MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

    Wait for the deploy to complete, then make sure it is available on PyPI.

  2. Merge the PR. Make sure it's not squash-merged, so that the tagged commit ends up in the main branch.

  3. Cherry-pick the CHANGELOG / announce files to the main branch:

    git fetch upstream
git checkout upstream/main -b cherry-pick-release
git cherry-pick -x -m1 upstream/MAJOR.MINOR.x
  4. Open a PR for cherry-pick-release and merge it once CI passes. No need to wait for approvals if there were no conflicts on the previous step.

  5. For major and minor releases (or the first prerelease of it), tag the release cherry-pick merge commit in main with a dev tag for the next feature release:

    git checkout main
git pull
git tag MAJOR.{MINOR+1}.0.dev0
git push upstream MAJOR.{MINOR+1}.0.dev0
  6. For major and minor releases, change the default version in the Read the Docs Settings to the new branch.

  7. Send an email announcement with the contents from:

    doc/en/announce/release-<VERSION>.rst

    To the following mailing lists:

    And announce it on Twitter with the #pytest hashtag.