Gutenberg Release Process Edit

This Repository is used to perform several types of releases. This document serves as a checklist for each one of these. It is helpful if you’d like to understand the different workflows.

To release Gutenberg, you need commit access to the WordPress.org plugin repository. 🙂

Plugin Releases #Plugin Releases

Schedule #Schedule

We release a new major version approximately every two weeks. The current and next versions are tracked in GitHub milestones, along with each version’s tagging date.

On the date of the current milestone, we publish a release candidate and make it available for plugin authors and users to test. If any regressions are found with a release candidate, a new release candidate can be published.

The date in the milestone is the date of tagging the release candidate. On this date, all remaining PRs on the milestone are moved automatically to the next release.

Release candidates should be versioned incrementally, starting with -rc.1, then -rc.2, and so on.

Two days after the first release candidate, the stable version is created based on the last release candidate and any necessary regression fixes.

Once the stable version is released, a post like this describing the changes and performing a performance audit should be published.

If critical bugs are discovered on stable versions of the plugin, patch versions can be released at any time.

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Release Tool #Release Tool

The plugin release process is entirely automated. To release the RC version of the plugin, run the following command and follow the instructions: (Note that at the time of writing, the tool doesn’t support releasing multiple consecutive RC releases)

./bin/commander.js rc

To release a stable version, run:

./bin/commander.js stable

It is possible to run the “stable” release CLI in a consecutive way to release patch releases following the first stable release.

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Manual Release Process #Manual Release Process

Creating the first Release Candidate #Creating the first Release Candidate

Releasing the first release candidate for this milestone (x.x) involves:

1. writing a release blog post and changelog
2. creating the release branch
3. bumping the version and tagging the release
4. building the plugin
5. publishing the release to GitHub
6. publishing the call for testing

Writing the Release Post and Changelog

1. Open the list of closed pull requests and filter by the current milestone.
2. Read through each PR to determine if it needs to be included in the blog post and/or changelog.
3. Choose a few features to highlight in the release post; record an animation of them in use.
4. Save the draft post on make.wordpress.org/core; this post should be published after the actual release.

Creating the Release Branch

For each milestone (let’s assume it’s x.x here), a release branch is used to release all RCs and minor releases. For the first RC of the milestone, a release branch is created from master.

git checkout master
git checkout -b release/x.x
git push origin release/x.x

Bumping the Version and Tagging the Release

1. Checkout the release/x.x branch.
2. Create a commit like this, bumping the version number in gutenberg.php, package.json, and package-lock.json to x.x.0-rc.1.
3. Create a Pull Request from the release branch into master using the changelog as a description and ensure the tests pass properly.
4. Tag the RC version. git tag vx.x.0-rc.1 from the release branch.
5. Push the tag git push --tags.
6. Merge the version bump pull request and avoid removing the release branch.

Build the Plugin

1. Run git fetch --tags.
2. Check out the tag for this release, you should run git checkout vx.x.0-rc.1.
3. Run ./bin/build-plugin-zip.sh from the root of project. This packages a zip file with a release build of gutenberg.zip.

Publish the Release on GitHub

1. Create a new release on GitHub.
2. If you were releasing the x.x.0-rc.1 release candidate, label it x.x.0-rc.1 and use the vx.x.x-rc.1 as a tag.
3. Upload the a gutenberg.zip file into the release.
4. Use the changelog as a description of the release.
5. Publish the release.

Here’s an example release candidate page; yours should look like that when you’re finished.

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Creating Release Candidate Patches (done via git cherry-pick) #Creating Release Candidate Patches (done via git cherry-pick)

If a bug is found in a release candidate and a fix is committed to master, we should include that fix in a new release candidate. To do this you’ll need to use git cherry-pick to add these changes to the milestone’s release branch. This way only fixes are added to the release candidate and not all the new code that has landed on master since tagging:

1. Checkout the corresponding release branch with: git checkout release/x.x.
2. Cherry-pick fix commits (in chronological order) with git cherry-pick [SHA].
3. Create a commit like this, bumping the version number in gutenberg.php, package.json, and package-lock.json to x.x.0-rc.2.
4. Create a Pull Request from the release branch into master using the changelog as a description and ensure the tests pass properly.
5. Tag the RC version. git tag vx.x.0-rc.2 from the release branch.
6. Push the tag git push --tags.
7. Merge the version bump pull request and avoid removing the release branch.
8. Follow the steps in build the plugin and publish the release on GitHub.

You can copy the existing changelog from the previous release candidate. Let other contributors know that a new release candidate has been released in the #core-editor channel and the call for testing post.

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Official Gutenberg Releases™ #Official Gutenberg Releases™

The process of releasing Gutenberg is similar to creating a release candidate, except we don’t use the -rc.X in the git tag and we publish a new branch in the subversion repository. This updates the version available in the WordPress plugin repository and will cause WordPress sites around the world to prompt users to update to this new version.

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Creating a Release #Creating a Release

Creating a release involves:

1. verifying the release blog post and changelog
2. bumping the version
3. building the plugin
4. publishing the new release to GitHub
5. committing to the plugin repository
6. publishing the release blog post

Verifying the Release Post and Changelog

1. Check the draft post on make.wordpress.org/core; make sure the changelog reflects what’s shipping in the release.

Bumping the Version

1. Checkout the release branch git checkout release/x.x.

Note: This branch should never be removed or rebased. When we want to merge something from it to master and conflicts exist/may exist we use a temporary branch bump/x.x.

1. Create a commit like this, removing the -rc.X from the version number in gutenberg.php, package.json, and package-lock.json.
2. Create a new branch called bump/x.x from release/x.x and switch to it: git checkout -b bump/x.x.
3. Create a pull request from bump/x.x to master. Verify the continuous integrations tests pass, before continuing to the next step even if conflicts exist.
4. Rebase bump/x.x against origin/master using git fetch origin && git rebase origin/master.
5. Force push the branch bump/x.x using git push --force-with-lease.
6. Switch to the release/x.x branch. Tag the version from the release branch git tag vx.x.0.
7. Push the tag git push --tags.
8. Merge the version bump pull request.

Build the Plugin

1. Run git fetch --tags.
2. Check out the tag for this release, you should run git checkout vx.x.0.
3. Run ./bin/build-plugin-zip.sh from the root of project. This packages a zip file with a release build of gutenberg.zip.

Publish the Release on GitHub

1. Create a new release on GitHub.
2. If you were releasing the x.x.0 release candidate, label it x.x.0 and use the vx.x.x as a tag.
3. Upload the a gutenberg.zip file into the release.
4. Use the changelog as a description of the release.
5. Publish the release.

Commit to the Plugin Repository

You’ll need to use Subversion to publish the plugin to WordPress.org.

1. Do an SVN checkout of https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/trunk:
   • If this is your first checkout, run: svn checkout https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/gutenberg/trunk
   • If you already have a copy, run: svn up
2. Delete the contents except for the readme.txt and changelog.txt files (these files don’t exist in the git repo, only in Subversion).
3. Extract the contents of the zip file.
4. Edit readme.txt, replacing the changelog for the previous version with the current release’s changelog.
5. Add the changelog for the current release to changelog.txt.
6. Add new files/remove deleted files from the repository:

# Add new files:
svn st | grep '^\?' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs svn add
# Delete old files:
svn st | grep '^!' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs svn rm

1. Commit the new version:

# Replace X.X.X with your version:
svn ci -m "Committing Gutenberg version X.X.X"

1. Tag the new version:

svn cp https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/gutenberg/trunk https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/gutenberg/tags/X.X.X -m "Tagging Gutenberg version X.X.X"

1. Edit readme.txt to point to the new tag. The Stable version header in readme.txt should be updated to match the new release version number. After updating and committing that, the new version should be released:

svn ci -m "Releasing Gutenberg version X.X.X"

This will cause the new version to be available to users of WordPress all over the globe! 💃

You should check that folks are able to install the new version from their Dashboard.

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Publish the Release Blog Post #Publish the Release Blog Post

1. Publish the make/core release blog post drafted earlier.
2. Pat yourself on the back! 👍

If you don’t have access to make.wordpress.org/core, ping someone on the Gutenberg Core team in the WordPress #core-editor Slack channel to publish the post.

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Packages Releases and WordPress Core Updates #Packages Releases and WordPress Core Updates

The Gutenberg repository mirrors the WordPress SVN repository in terms of branching for each SVN branch, a corresponding Gutenberg wp/* branch is created:

• The wp/trunk branch contains all the packages that are published and used in the trunk branch of WordPress.
• A Gutenberg branch targeting a specific WordPress major release (including its further minor increments) is created (example wp/5.2) based on the wp/trunk Gutenberg branch when the WordPress trunk branch is marked as “feature-freezed”. (This usually happens when the first beta of the next WordPress major version is released).

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Synchronizing WordPress Trunk #Synchronizing WordPress Trunk

For each Gutenberg plugin release, WordPress trunk should be synchronized with this release. This involves the following steps:

Note: The WordPress trunk branch can be closed or in “feature-freeze” mode. Usually, this happens between the first beta and the first RC of the WordPress release cycle. During this period, the Gutenberg plugin releases should not be synchronized with WordPress Core.

1. Ensure the WordPress trunk branch is open for enhancements.
2. Check out the last published Gutenberg release branch git checkout release/x.x
3. Create a Pull Request from this branch targeting wp/trunk.
4. Merge the Pull Request using the “Rebase and Merge” button to keep the history of the commits.

Now, the branch is ready to be used to publish the npm packages.

1. Check out the wp/trunk branch.
2. Run the package release process but when asked for the version numbers to choose for each package, (assuming the package versions are written using this format major.minor.patch) make sure to bump at least the minor version number. For example, if the CHANGELOG of the package to be released indicates that the next unreleased version is 5.6.1, choose 5.7.0 as a version.
3. Update the CHANGELOG.md files of the published packages with the new released versions and commit to the wp/trunk branch.
4. Cherry-pick the “Publish” (created by Lerna) and the CHANGELOG update commits into the master branch of Gutenberg.

Now, the npm packages should be ready and a patch can be created and committed into WordPress trunk.

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Minor WordPress Releases #Minor WordPress Releases

The following workflow is needed when bug fixes or security releases need to be backported into WordPress Core. This can happen in a few use-cases:

• During the beta and the RC period of the WordPress release cycle.
• For WordPress minor releases and WordPress security releases (example 5.1.1).

1. Cherry-pick
2. Check out the last published Gutenberg release branch git checkout release/x.x
3. Create a Pull Request from this branch targeting the WordPress related major branch (Example wp/5.2).
4. Merge the Pull Request using the “Rebase and Merge” button to keep the history of the commits.

Now, the branch is ready to be used to publish the npm packages.

1. Check out the WordPress branch used before (Example wp/5.2).
2. Run the package release process but when asked for the version numbers to choose for each package, (assuming the package versions are written using this format major.minor.patch) make sure to bump only the patch version number. For example, if the last published package version for this WordPress branch was 5.6.0, choose 5.6.1 as a version.

Note: For WordPress 5.0 and WordPress 5.1, a different release process was used. This means that when choosing npm package versions targeting these two releases, you won’t be able to use the next patch version number as it may have been already used. You should use the “metadata” modifier for these. For example, if the last published package version for this WordPress branch was 5.6.1, choose 5.6.1+patch.1 as a version.

1. Update the CHANGELOG.md files of the published packages with the new released versions and commit to the corresponding branch (Example wp/5.2).
2. Cherry-pick the CHANGELOG update commits into the master branch of Gutenberg.

Now, the npm packages should be ready and a patch can be created and committed into the corresponding WordPress SVN branch.

Ta-da! 🎉