release_plan.md

General Notes

All dates should align with VS Code's iteration and endgame plans.

Feature freeze is Monday @ 17:00 America/Vancouver, XXX XX. At that point, commits to main should only be in response to bugs found during endgame testing until the release candidate is ready.

Release Primary and Secondary Assignments for the 2025 Calendar Year

Month and version number	Primary	Secondary
January v2025.0.0	Eleanor	Karthik
February v2025.2.0	Anthony	Eleanor
March v2025.4.0	Karthik	Anthony
April v2025.6.0	Eleanor	Karthik
May v2025.8.0	Anthony	Eleanor
June v2025.10.0	Karthik	Anthony
July v2025.12.0	Eleanor	Karthik
August v2025.14.0	Anthony	Eleanor
September v2025.16.0	Karthik	Anthony
October v2025.18.0	Eleanor	Karthik
November v2025.20.0	Anthony	Eleanor
December v2025.22.0	Karthik	Anthony

Release candidate (Thursday, XXX XX)

NOTE: This Thursday occurs during TESTING week. Branching should be done during this week to freeze the release with only the correct changes. Any last minute fixes go in as candidates into the release branch and will require team approval.

Other: NOTE: Third Party Notices are automatically added by our build pipelines using https://tools.opensource.microsoft.com/notice. NOTE: the number of this release is in the issue title and can be substituted in wherever you see [YYYY.minor].

Step 1:

Bump the version of main to be a release candidate (also updating third party notices, and package-lock.json).❄️ (steps with ❄️ will dictate this step happens while main is frozen 🥶)

• checkout to main on your local machine and run git fetch to ensure your local is up to date with the remote repo.
• Create a new branch called bump-release-[YYYY.minor].
• Update pet:
  • Go to the pet repo and check main and latest release/* branch. If there are new changes in main then create a branch called release/YYYY.minor (matching python extension release major.minor).
  • Update build\azure-pipeline.stable.yml to point to the latest release/YYYY.minor for python-environment-tools.
• Change the version in package.json to the next even number and switch the -dev to -rc. (🤖)
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date (you should now see changes to the package.json and package-lock.json at this point which update the version number only). (🤖)
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Repository.txt as appropriate. You can check by looking at the commit history and scrolling through to see if there's anything listed there which might have pulled in some code directly into the repository from somewhere else. If you are still unsure you can check with the team.
• Create a PR from your branch bump-release-[YYYY.minor] to main. Add the "no change-log" tag to the PR so it does not show up on the release notes before merging it.

NOTE: this PR will fail the test in our internal release pipeline called VS Code (pre-release) because the version specified in main is (temporarily) an invalid pre-release version. This is expected as this will be resolved below.

Step 2: Creating your release branch ❄️

• Create a release branch by creating a new branch called release/YYYY.minor branch from main. This branch is now the candidate for our release which will be the base from which we will release.

NOTE: If there are release branches that are two versions old you can delete them at this time.

Step 3 Create a draft GitHub release for the release notes (🤖) ❄️

• Create a new GitHub release.
• Specify a new tag called YYYY.minor.0.
• Have the target for the github release be your release branch called release/YYYY.minor.
• Create the release notes by specifying the previous tag for the last stable release and click Generate release notes. Quickly check that it only contain notes from what is new in this release.
• Click Save draft.

Step 4: Return main to dev and unfreeze (❄️ ➡ 💧)

NOTE: The purpose of this step is ensuring that main always is on a dev version number for every night's 🌃 pre-release. Therefore it is imperative that you do this directly after the previous steps to reset the version in main to a dev version before a pre-release goes out.

• Create a branch called bump-dev-version-YYYY.[minor+1].
• Bump the minor version number in the package.json to the next YYYY.[minor+1] which will be an odd number, and switch the -rc to -dev.(🤖)
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date (you should now see changes to the package.json and package-lock.json only relating to the new version number) . (🤖)
• Create a PR from this branch against main and merge it.

NOTE: this PR should make all CI relating to main be passing again (such as the failures stemming from step 1).

Step 5: Notifications and Checks on External Release Factors

• Check Component Governance to make sure there are no active alerts.
• Manually add/fix any 3rd-party licenses as appropriate based on what the internal build pipeline detects.
• Open appropriate documentation issues.
• Contact the PM team to begin drafting a blog post.
• Announce to the development team that main is open again.

Release (Wednesday, XXX XX)

Step 6: Take the release branch from a candidate to the finalized release

• Make sure the appropriate pull requests for the documentation -- including the WOW page -- are ready.
• Check to make sure any final updates to the release/YYYY.minor branch have been merged.
• Create a branch against release/YYYY.minor called finalized-release-[YYYY.minor].
• Update the version in package.json to remove the -rc (🤖) from the version.
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date (the only update should be the version number if package-lock.json has been kept up-to-date). (🤖)
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Repository.txt manually if necessary.
• Create a PR from finalized-release-[YYYY.minor] against release/YYYY.minor and merge it.

Step 7: Execute the Release

• Make sure CI is passing for release/YYYY.minor release branch (🤖).
• Run the CD pipeline on the release/YYYY.minor branch.
  • Click run pipeline.
  • for branch/tag select the release branch which is release/YYYY.minor.
  • NOTE: Please opt to release the python extension close to when VS Code is released to align when release notes go out. When we bump the VS Code engine number, our extension will not go out to stable until the VS Code stable release but this only occurs when we bump the engine number.
• 🧍🧍 Get approval on the release on the CD.
• Click "approve" in the publish step of CD to publish the release to the marketplace. 🎉
• Take the Github release out of draft.
• Publish documentation changes.
• Contact the PM team to publish the blog post.
• Determine if a hotfix is needed.
• Merge the release branch release/YYYY.minor back into main. (This step is only required if changes were merged into the release branch. If the only change made on the release branch is the version, this is not necessary. Overall you need to ensure you DO NOT overwrite the version on the main branch.)

Steps for Point Release (if necessary)

• checkout to main on your local machine and run git fetch to ensure your local is up to date with the remote repo.
• checkout to the release/YYY.minor and check to make sure all necessary changes for the point release have been cherry-picked into the release branch. If not, contact the owner of the changes to do so.
• Create a branch against release/YYYY.minor called release-[YYYY.minor.point].
• Bump the point version number in the package.json to the next YYYY.minor.point
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date (you should now see changes to the package.json and package-lock.json only relating to the new version number) . (🤖)
• If Point Release is due to an issue in pet. Update build\azure-pipeline.stable.yml to point to the branch release/YYYY.minor for python-environment-tools with the fix or decided by the team.
• Create a PR from this branch against release/YYYY.minor
• Rebase and merge this PR into the release branch
• Create a draft GitHub release for the release notes (🤖) ❄️
  • Create a new GitHub release.
  • Specify a new tag called vYYYY.minor.point.
  • Have the target for the github release be your release branch called release/YYYY.minor.
  • Create the release notes by specifying the previous tag as the previous version of stable, so the minor release vYYYY.minor for the last stable release and click Generate release notes.
  • Check the generated notes to ensure that all PRs for the point release are included so users know these new changes.
  • Click Save draft.
• Publish the point release
  • Make sure CI is passing for release/YYYY.minor release branch (🤖).
  • Run the CD pipeline on the release/YYYY.minor branch.
  • Click run pipeline.
  • for branch/tag select the release branch which is release/YYYY.minor.
  • 🧍🧍 Get approval on the release on the CD and publish the release to the marketplace. 🎉
  • Take the Github release out of draft.

Steps for contributing to a point release

• Work with team to decide if point release is necessary
• Work with team or users to verify the fix is correct and solves the problem without creating any new ones
• Create PR/PRs and merge then each into main as usual
• Make sure to still mark if the change is "bug" or "no-changelog"
• Cherry-pick all PRs to the release branch and check that the changes are in before the package is bumped
• Notify the release champ that your changes are in so they can trigger a point-release

Prep for the next release

• Create a new release plan. (🤖)
• (Un-)pin release plan issues (🤖)