F* release process

See also Creating binary packages for your platform

• Find volunteers for creating Mac packages. For Windows and Linux use the weekly-build infrastructure. You can trigger such builds any time via Azure DevOps (aka VSTS). Use the FStar-Binaries-Linux and FStar-Binaries-Windows build definitions.

• Find volunteers for testing packages on Windows, Mac, and Linux

• Make sure that F* builds, passes all the tests, and that creating binary packages works well

• (Maybe one day) Close all issues that were already fixed (helps getting nicer release notes, but only works well if people actually use the tracker for their work).

• Push all changes to the OCaml snapshot to master.

• Create a new branch called v0.9.x.y-release. For alpha or beta releases use v0.9.x.y-alpha-release or v0.9.x.y-beta-release.

• Bump the version in version.txt

• Draft a new release on GitHub using the new branch (or a specific commit on that branch). The release title should be the version number optionally followed by some mnemonic. Can use GitHub for a list of changes between two releases or of issues closed between two dates. And now we also have https://github.com/FStarLang/FStar/blob/master/CHANGES.md

• Have the Mac volunteer create package for their platform and add them to the release. For Windows and Linux use the weekly build infrastructure from the first step.

• Have the volunteers test the binaries for their platform https://github.com/FStarLang/FStar/blob/master/INSTALL.md#testing-a-binary-package

• Create a release tag called v0.9.x.y by pressing the "Publish release" button.

• Merge the v0.9.x.y-release branch into master.

• At the end of a release, please remember to update the links at: https://www.fstar-lang.org/#download

• Update third-party packages:

  • opam package: needs to be done via a pull request on opam-repository, or you can ping Tahina -- the starting point should be the fstar.opam file from the main F* repo
  • Chocolatey package: happens automatically every 8 hours
  • Homebrew package: still don't know how to update the formula, but you can ping Benjamin Beurdouche (no longer maintained, see #1938 and Homebrew/homebrew-core#49745)