RELEASE.md

cilium-cli Release Process

Release process and checklist for cilium-cli.

This repository currently uses release branches v0.10 and main. All releases stem from one of these branches. Refer to the Release table for the most recent supported versions.

Check issues and PRs

• Merge all PRs marked as ready to merge
• Make sure there are no open issues or PRs labeled as release blocker
• Make sure there are no Dependabot alerts

Prepare environment variables

Set RELEASE environment variable to the new version. This variable will be used in the commands throughout the documenat to allow copy-pasting.

export RELEASE=v0.18.4

Create release preparation branch and PR

Update your local checkout to the latest state:

git checkout main
git pull origin main

Create the release branch:

git checkout -b pr/prepare-$RELEASE

Update github.com/cilium/cilium to the latest version:

go get github.com/cilium/cilium@main
go mod tidy && go mod vendor
git add go.mod go.sum vendor

Update the Releases section of the README.md which lists all currently supported releases in a table. The version in this table needs to be updated to match the new release $RELEASE. Also bump $RELEASE in the section above, so it can be copy-pasted when preparing the next release.

git add README.md RELEASE.md
git commit -s -m "Prepare for $RELEASE release"

Push the branch to the upstream repository:

git push origin pr/prepare-$RELEASE

Then open a pull request against main branch. Wait for the PR to be reviewed and merged.

Tag a release

Update your local checkout:

git checkout main
git pull origin main

Set the commit you want to tag:

export COMMIT_SHA=<commit-sha-to-release>

Usually this is the most recent commit on main, i.e.

export COMMIT_SHA=$(git rev-parse origin/main)

Then tag and push the release:

git tag -a $RELEASE -m "$RELEASE release" $COMMIT_SHA && git push origin $RELEASE

Update the GitHub release notes

When a tag is pushed, a GitHub Action job takes care of creating a new GitHub draft release, building artifacts and attaching them to the draft release. Once the draft is ready, review the release notes and publish the release.

Update stable.txt

The CLI installation instructions in the Cilium documentation use the version specified in stable.txt in the main branch. Update stable.txt after the release, whenever Cilium users should pick up this new release for installation:

echo $RELEASE > stable.txt
git checkout -b pr/update-stable-$RELEASE
git add stable.txt
git commit -s -m "Update stable release to $RELEASE"
git push origin HEAD

Then open a pull request against main branch.