systemd/docs/RELEASE.md

title
Steps to a Successful Release

Steps to a Successful Release

1. Add all items to NEWS
2. Update the contributors list in NEWS (ninja -C build git-contrib)
3. Update the time and place in NEWS
4. Update version and library numbers in meson.build
5. Tag the release: version=vXXX-rcY && git tag -s "${version}" -m "systemd ${version}"
6. Do ninja -C build
7. Make sure that the version string and package string match: build/systemctl --version
8. Upload the documentation: ninja -C build doc-sync
9. [After final release] Close the github milestone and open a new one (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/milestones)
10. "Draft" a new release on github (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/new), mark "This is a pre-release" if appropriate.
11. Check that announcement to systemd-devel, with a copy&paste from NEWS, was sent. This should happen automatically.
12. Update IRC topic (/msg chanserv TOPIC #systemd Version NNN released)
13. [After final release] Also push commits to stable, create an empty -stable branch: git push systemd-stable origin/master:master origin/master:v${version}-stable, and change the default branch to latest release (https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable/settings/branches).