Release Process#

Versioning follows Semantic Versioning (v<major>.<minor>.<patch>) with git tags.

Creating a release#

  1. Prepare changelog

    Collect towncrier fragments into the release notes:

    towncrier build --version=<VERSION>

    Commit the updated CHANGES.rst and remove the fragment files.

  2. Tag the release

    git tag -a v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH> -m "Release v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH>"
git push origin v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH>

  3. CI publishes automatically

    On tag push, the pipeline:

    • Builds container images (backend, auth, frontend, playwright)

    • Publishes images to harbor.cta-observatory.org/suss/

    • Packages and publishes the Helm chart

    • Runs all tests and SonarQube analysis

  4. Promote to environments

    Update the Flux Git repository to reference the new chart version. See Staging & Production for the promotion flow.

Changelog management#

The project uses towncrier. Each merge request adds a fragment under docs/changes/ following the naming docs/changes/42.bugfix.rst, specifying the number of the merge request and the type of change.

Fragment types: feature, bugfix, api, optimization, maintenance.

The need for adding a new fragment in a given merge request can be omitted if no-changelog-needed label is added.

See pyproject.toml for the towncrier configuration.