From 6e1d88204f2e0124161ee3e4613825c3e7a53dc7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: daz <daz@gradle.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2024 18:10:06 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] Add release instructions

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 RELEASING.md | 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 48 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 RELEASING.md

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+# Gradle GitHub Actions release process
+
+## Preparation
+- Push any outstanding changes to branch main. For any change that impacts the released action, you must run npm via `./build all` and commit the various files generated into the dist directory.
+- Check that https://github.com/gradle/actions/actions is green for all workflows for the main branch.
+- Decide on the version number to use for the release. The action releases should follow semantic versioning.
+  - By default, a patch release is assumed (eg. `3.0.0` → `3.0.1`)
+  - If new features have been added, bump the minor version (eg `3.1.1` → `3.2.0`)
+  - If a new major release is required, bump the major version (eg `3.1.1` → `4.0.0`)
+  - Note: The gradle actions follow the GitHub Actions convention of including a .0 patch number for the first release of a minor version, unlike the Gradle convention which omits the trailing .0.
+
+## Release gradle/actions
+- Create a tag for the release. The tag should have the format `v3.1.0`
+  - From CLI: `git tag v3.1.0`
+- Push the commit and tag
+  - From CLI: `git push --tags`
+- Go to https://github.com/gradle/actions/releases and "Draft new release"
+  - Use the newly created tag and copy the tag name exactly as the release title.
+  - Craft release notes content based on issues closed, PRs merged and commits
+  - Include a Full changelog link in the format https://github.com/gradle/actions/compare/v2.12.0...v3.0.0
+- Publish the release. Before using "Publish release", check that action workflows are green for the version tag. eg https://github.com/gradle/actions/actions?query=branch%3Av3.0.0
+- Force push the `v3` tag (or current major version) to point to the new release. It is conventional for users to bind to a major release version using this tag.
+  - From CLI: `git tag -f -a -m "v3.0.0" v3 v3.0.0 && git push -f --tags`
+  - Note that we set the commit message for the tag to the newly released version.
+
+## Release gradle/gradle-build-action
+
+During the 3.x release series, we will continue to publish parallel releases of `gradle/gradle-build-action`. These releases will simply delegate to `gradle/actions/setup-gradle` with the same version.
+
+- Update the gradle-build-action action.yml file to point to the newly released version of gradle/actions/setup-gradle.
+- Ensure that any parameters that have been added to the setup-gradle action are added to the gradle-build-action definition, and that these are passed on to setup-gradle.
+- Create and push a tag for the release.
+  - From CLI: `git tag v3.1.0 && git push --tags`
+- Go to https://github.com/gradle/actions/releases and "Draft new release"
+  - Use the newly created tag and copy the tag name exactly as the release title.
+  - In the release notes, point users to the gradle/actions release. Include a header informing users to switch to gradle/actions/setup-gradle.
+- Publish the release.
+- Force push the `v3` tag (or current major version) to point to the new release.
+  - From CLI: `git tag -f -a -m "v3.0.0" v3 v3.0.0 && git push -f --tags`
+
+## Post release steps
+
+Submit PRs to update the GitHub starter workflow. Starter workflows contain content that should reference the Git hash of the current gradle/actions release:
+https://github.com/actions/starter-workflows has gradle and gradle-publish: see the v2.1.4 update PR for an example.
+
+Submit PRs to update the GitHub documentation. The documentation contains content that should reference the Git hash of the current gradle/actions release:
+https://github.com/github/docs has building-and-testing-java-with-gradle and publishing-java-packages-with-gradle : see the v2.1.4 update PR for an example.
+