Release Checklist

Main Release

Released quarterly on the first day of January, April, July, October.

• Open a release ticket e.g. https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/issues/1174
• Develop and prepare release in master branch.
• Check Travis CI and AppVeyor CI to confirm passing tests in master branch.
• Check that all of the wheel builds Pillow Wheel Builder pass the tests in TravisCI.
• In compliance with https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0440/, update version identifier in src/PIL/_version.py
• Update CHANGES.rst.
• Run pre-release check via make release-test in a freshly cloned repo.
• Create branch and tag for release e.g.:

    $ git branch 2.9.x
    $ git tag 2.9.0
    $ git push --all
    $ git push --tags

• Create source distributions e.g.:

    $ make sdist

• Create binary distributions
• Upload all binaries and source distributions with twine upload dist/Pillow-4.1.0-*
• Manually hide old versions on PyPI such that only the latest major release is visible when viewing https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/ (https://pypi.org/manage/project/Pillow/releases/)

Point Release

Released as needed for security, installation or critical bug fixes.

• Make necessary changes in master branch.
• Update CHANGES.rst.
• Cherry pick individual commits from master branch to release branch e.g. 2.9.x.
• Check Travis CI to confirm passing tests in release branch e.g. 2.9.x.
• Checkout release branch e.g.:

    git checkout -t remotes/origin/2.9.x

• In compliance with https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0440/, update version identifier in src/PIL/_version.py
• Run pre-release check via make release-test.
• Create tag for release e.g.:

    $ git tag 2.9.1
    $ git push --tags

• Create source distributions e.g.:

    $ make sdist

• Create binary distributions

Embargoed Release

Released as needed privately to individual vendors for critical security-related bug fixes.

• Prepare patch for all versions that will get a fix. Test against local installations.
• Commit against master, cherry pick to affected release branches.
• Run local test matrix on each release & Python version.
• Privately send to distros.
• Run pre-release check via make release-test
• Amend any commits with the CVE #
• On release date, tag and push to GitHub.

    git checkout 2.5.x
    git tag 2.5.3
    git push origin 2.5.x
    git push origin --tags

• Create source distributions e.g.:

    $ make sdist

• Create binary distributions

Binary Distributions

Windows

• Contact @cgohlke for Windows binaries via release ticket e.g. https://github.com/python-pillow/Pillow/issues/1174.
• Download and extract tarball from @cgohlke and twine upload *.

Mac and Linux

• Use the Pillow Wheel Builder:

    $ git checkout https://github.com/python-pillow/pillow-wheels
    $ cd pillow-wheels
    $ git submodule init
    $ git submodule update
    $ cd Pillow
    $ git fetch --all
    $ git checkout [[release tag]]
    $ cd ..
    $ git commit -m "Pillow -> 2.9.0" Pillow
    $ git push

• Download distributions from the Pillow Wheel Builder container.

Publicize Release

• Announce release availability via Twitter e.g. https://twitter.com/aclark4life/status/583366798302691328.

Documentation

• Make sure the default version for Read the Docs is the latest release version, e.g. 3.1.x rather than latest: https://readthedocs.org/projects/pillow/versions/