Create a new Charm release

⚠️ Note: git tags should be annotated (use git tag -a). Do not use GitHub's release tool to create the tag, do so on the command line and push it first before creating a release on GitHub.

Before creating a prerelease

• Check on GitHub to see if bugs targeted for the release version are done. If they aren't, decide if they can be postponed or get after people to fix them.

• Check that libraries which we distribute with Charm are up to date:

  • hwloc
  • Boost uFcontext threads
  • QuickThreads
  • METIS
  • LLVM OpenMP runtime
  • nlohmann/json (https://github.com/nlohmann/json)

• Add release notes to CHANGES.

• Update the Charm++ version number in configure.ac and CMakeLists.txt.

• Update the list of authors in README.md, .zenodo.json, and doc/charm++/manual.rst

Prereleases

• For a beta, tag on main, for an RC, tag on a branch (branch named charm-X.X and tagged vX.X.X-rcX). Ask users and the application teams to do performance tests. Give them about a week to respond. If there are performance regressions or major bugs reported, then fix them before release.
• Tag the commit on main directly after branching as v{X.X.X + 1}-devel (e.g. after creating the charm-6.10 branch and tagging the branch with v6.10.0-rc1, tag the next commit on main as v6.11.0-devel). This is required so that the preamble that Charm++ prints and git describe on main show the current release being worked toward. The new number should indicate the next feature release, not upcoming bugfix releases.

Release

When a release is ready, create and push a tag on the branch (vX.X.X) and do the following:

• Add release notes to CHANGES, and update the version numbers in configure.ac and CMakeLists.txt.
• Update both webpages with the release tarballs and with news items: https://charm.cs.illinois.edu/download/, https://charm.cs.illinois.edu/news, and http://charmplusplus.org/download/
• The Charm++ Wikipedia page also has the current release info, so update it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charm%2B%2B
• Modify the charm-latest.tar.gz link to point to the new release.
• Update the tar files on the web server using ./package_tarball.sh --release.
• Update the tar files for Projections & CharmDebug too.
• Email charm.cs mailing list announcing the release with the release notes.
• Close out the release on GitHub's roadmap, update mainline charm CHANGES, README.md, etc.
• Create release on GitHub (https://github.com/UIUC-PPL/charm/releases/new, use existing tag name)
• Create a new release of the manual on readthedocs.io
• Update the Spack package.
• Add announcement to https://github.com/UIUC-PPL/charm/discussions