systemd/docs/RELEASE.md

title	category	layout	SPDX-License-Identifier
Steps to a Successful Release	Contributing	default	LGPL-2.1-or-later

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 hwdb (ninja -C build update-hwdb, ninja -C build update-hwdb-autosuspend, commit separately).
5. Update syscall numbers (ninja -C build update-syscall-tables update-syscall-header).
6. [RC1] Update version and library numbers in meson.build
7. Check dbus docs with ninja -C build update-dbus-docs
8. Update translation strings (cd build, meson compile systemd-pot, meson compile systemd-update-po) - drop the header comments from systemd.pot + re-add SPDX before committing. If the only change in a file is the 'POT-Creation-Date' field, then ignore that file.
9. Tag the release: version=vXXX-rcY && git tag -s "${version}" -m "systemd ${version}"
10. Do ninja -C build
11. Make sure that the version string and package string match: build/systemctl --version
12. Upload the documentation: ninja -C build doc-sync
13. [FINAL] Close the github milestone and open a new one (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/milestones)
14. "Draft" a new release on github (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/new), mark "This is a pre-release" if appropriate.
15. Check that announcement to systemd-devel, with a copy&paste from NEWS, was sent. This should happen automatically.
16. Update IRC topic (/msg chanserv TOPIC #systemd Version NNN released)
17. [FINAL] Push commits to stable, create an empty -stable branch: git push systemd-stable --atomic origin/main:main origin/main:refs/heads/${version}-stable, and change the default branch to latest release (https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable/settings/branches).