HOWTORELEASE.rst

Release Procedure

Our current policy for releasing is to aim for a bugfix 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.

Important

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

1. Install development dependencies in a virtual environment with:

   pip3 install -U -r tasks/requirements.txt
   

2. Create a branch release-X.Y.Z with the version for the release.

   • patch releases: from the latest master;
   • minor releases: from the latest features; then merge with the latest master;

   Ensure your are in a clean work tree.

3. Generate docs, changelog, announcements and a local tag:

   invoke generate.pre-release <VERSION>
   

4. Open a PR for this branch targeting master.

5. After all tests pass and the PR has been approved, publish to PyPI by pushing the tag:

   git push git@github.com:pytest-dev/pytest.git <VERSION>
   

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

6. Send an email announcement with the contents from:

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

   To the following mailing lists:

   • pytest-dev@python.org (all releases)
   • python-announce-list@python.org (all releases)
   • testing-in-python@lists.idyll.org (only major/minor releases)

   And announce it on Twitter with the #pytest hashtag.

7. After a minor/major release, merge release-X.Y.Z into master and push (or open a PR).