docs: update release process guide

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -125,23 +125,38 @@ Here are some things to keep in mind as you file pull requests to fix bugs, add
 - If you are continuing the work of another person's PR and need to rebase/squash, please retain the
  attribution of the original author(s) and continue the work in subsequent commits.
 
-### Release process
-
-- Make sure the tests pass with `yarn test`
-- Run `git clean -fdx` - this will ensure unneeded build files (and potentially sensitive files) are not included in the npm package.
-- Ensure that you are logged into npm via command line (`npm login`)
-- Run `yarn lerna:publish`, which will run the `lerna publish` command with a necessary set of flags.
- - The script will then ask you for your `npm` OTP password.
- - The script will commit the changes automatically. Run `git log` to confirm that the changes have been
- committed.
-- The command will have published your packages to `npm`, and pushed an appropriate tag to github.
-- After running the command, you should have a commit which:
- - Updates the version field in the package.json file
- - Updates the version fields in each of the submodule package.json files
-- Push your commit upstream to the main/default branch.
-- Create a new github release
- - Go to releases tab
- - Draft a new release and choose the appropriate tag
- - Target default branch
- - Generate release notes by copying in CHANGELOG.md contents into the release description or use
- GitHub's [automatically generated release notes](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/automatically-generated-release-notes)
+## Release process
+
+This guide is for maintainers who have:
+
+- Push access to the `electron/forge` repository.
+- Collaborator access to the `@electron-forge` packages on npm.
+
+### 1. Prepare your local code checkout
+
+- Switch to the tip of the `main` branch with `git switch main && git pull`.
+- Run tests locally with `yarn test`.
+- Check that the latest CI run passed on `main` on [GitHub](https://github.com/electron/forge/actions?query=workflow:CI).
+- Remove all untracked files and directories from your checkout with `git clean -fdx`.
+- Install dependencies with `yarn install`.
+
+### 2. Publish all npm packages
+
+- Log into npm with `npm login`.
+- Run the `yarn lerna:publish` command.
+- Enter your npm account's time-based one-time password (TOTP).
+
+The `lerna:publish` script will automatically increment the next package version based on the
+[Conventional Commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/) standard. From there, it does two things:
+
+1. It creates a tagged commit that bumps the version number in `package.json` at the root and package levels
+ and pushes the commit and tag to GitHub.
+1. It publishes every `@electron-forge/` package to npm.
+
+### 3. Publish release to GitHub
+
+- Go to the repo's [New Release](https://github.com/electron/forge/releases/new) page.
+- Select tag you just published.
+- Target the `main` branch.
+- [Automatically generated release notes](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/automatically-generated-release-notes)
+ against the previous Forge release.