Merge pull request #1371 from urfave/release-metadata

Cleaning up some release-related metadata & docs

LICENSE

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 MIT License
 
-Copyright (c) 2016 Jeremy Saenz & Contributors
+Copyright (c) 2022 urfave/cli maintainers
 
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal

README.md

@@ -78,3 +78,7 @@ export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
 cli is tested against multiple versions of Go on Linux, and against the latest
 released version of Go on OS X and Windows. This project uses Github Actions for
 builds. To see our currently supported go versions and platforms, look at the [./.github/workflows/cli.yml](https://github.com/urfave/cli/blob/main/.github/workflows/cli.yml).
+
+## License
+
+See [`LICENSE`](./LICENSE)

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+> :warning: This document is no longer being actively maintained. Please see the
+> [releases page](https://github.com/urfave/cli/releases) for all release notes
+> and related hypermedia for releases `>= 1.22.5`, `>= 2.3.0`.
+
+---
+
 # Change Log
 
 **ATTN**: This project uses [semantic versioning](http://semver.org/).

docs/RELEASING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# Releasing urfave/cli
+
+Releasing small batches often is [backed by
+research](https://itrevolution.com/accelerate-book/) as part of the
+virtuous cycles that keep teams and products healthy.
+
+To that end, the overall goal of the release process is to send
+changes out into the world as close to the time the commits were
+merged to the `main` branch as possible. In this way, the community
+of humans depending on this library are able to make use of the
+changes they need **quickly**, which means they shouldn't have to
+maintain long-lived forks of the project, which means they can get
+back to focusing on the work on which they want to focus. This also
+means that the @urfave/cli team should be able to focus on
+delivering a steadily improving product with significantly eased
+ability to associate bugs and regressions with specific releases.
+
+## Process
+
+- Release versions follow [semantic versioning](https://semver.org/)
+- Releases are associated with **signed, annotated git tags**[^1].
+- Release notes are **automatically generated**[^2].
+
+In the `main` or `v1` branch, the current version is always
+available via:
+
+```sh
+git describe --always --dirty --tags
+```
+
+**NOTE**: if the version reported contains `-dirty`, this is
+indicative of a "dirty" work tree, which is not a great state for
+creating a new release tag. Seek help from @urfave/cli teammates.
+
+For example, given a described version of `v2.4.7-3-g68da1cd` and a
+diff of `v2.4.7...` that contains only bug fixes, the next version
+should be `v2.4.8`:
+
+```sh
+git tag -a -s -m 'Release 2.4.8' v2.4.8
+git push origin v2.4.8
+```
+
+The tag push will trigger a GitHub Actions workflow. The remaining
+steps require human intervention through the GitHub web view
+although [automated solutions
+exist](https://github.com/softprops/action-gh-release) that may be
+adopted in the future.
+
+- Open the [the new release page](https://github.com/urfave/cli/releases/new)
+- At the top of the form, click on the `Choose a tag` select control and select `v2.4.8`
+- In the `Write` tab below, click the `Auto-generate release notes` button
+- At the bottom of the form, click the `Publish release` button
+- :white_check_mark: you're done!
+
+[^1]: This was not always true. There are many **lightweight git
+  tags** present in the repository history.
+
+[^2]: This was not always true. The
+  [`docs/CHANGELOG.md`](./CHANGELOG.md) document used to be
+  manually maintained.