The Gitea release candidates are suffixed with **-rcN** which is handled as a special case for packaging: although **X.Y.Z** is lexicographically lower than **X.Y.Z-rc1** is is considered greater. The Forgejo serial number must therefore be inserted before the **-rcN** suffix to preserve the expected version ordering.
Because Forgejo depends on Gitea, it must retain the same release numbering scheme to be compatible with libraries and tools that depend on it. For instance, the tea CLI or the Gitea SDK will behave differently depending on the server version they connect to. If Forgejo had a different numbering scheme, it would no longer be compatible with the Gitea ecosystem.
From a [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/) standpoint, all Forgejo releases are [pre-releases](https://semver.org/#spec-item-9) because they are suffixed with a dash. They are syntactically correct but do not comply with the Semantic Versioning recommendations. Gitea is not compliant either and Forgejo inherits this problem.
- Push the vX.Y.Z-N tag to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration/forgejo to trigger a workflow that will publish the release in https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/forgejo
- Give it some time for people to try it out
- Push the vX.Y.Z-N tag to https://forgejo.octopuce.forgejo.org/forgejo-release/forgejo to trigger a workflow that will sign the release from https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/forgejo and publish it in https://codeberg.org/forgejo-release/forgejo
- Create a `Forgejo vX.X.Z-N` milestone set to the date of the release
- Create an issue named `[RELEASE] Forgejo vX.Y.Z-N` with a description that includes a list of what needs to be done for the release with links to follow the progress
- Set the milestone of this issue to `Forgejo vX.X.Z-N`
- Close the milestone when the release is complete
The vX.Y/forgejo branch is populated as part of the [rebase on top of Gitea](../workflow/). The release happens in between rebase and it is worth checking if the matching Gitea branch, release/vX.Y contains commits that should be included in the release.
When Forgejo is released, artefacts (packages, binaries, etc.) are first published by the CI/CD pipelines in the https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental organization, to be downloaded and verified to work.
If the build fails, the logs of the workflow can be found in https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration/forgejo/actions for debugging.
Once the build is successful, it must be copied to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental.
- Push the vX.Y.Z-N tag to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/forgejo
It will trigger a [publish workflow](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/src/branch/forgejo/.forgejo/workflows/publish-release.yml) that:
- Copies the binaries from https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration/forgejo/releases to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/forgejo/releases
- Copies the container images from https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration/-/packages/container/forgejo/versions to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/-/packages/container/forgejo/versions
To verify the container images, the [end-to-end](https://code.forgejo.org/forgejo/end-to-end) integration tests can be used. Push a branch with [the location of the release under test](https://code.forgejo.org/forgejo/end-to-end/src/branch/main/.forgejo/workflows/actions.yml) to run a collection of test workflows.
- https://forgejo.octopuce.forgejo.org/forgejo-release/runner-debug has the same secrets as https://forgejo.octopuce.forgejo.org/forgejo-release/runner
- Make the changes, commit them, tag the commit with vX.Y.Z-N and force push the tag to https://forgejo.octopuce.forgejo.org/forgejo-release/runner-debug. Note that it does not matter that the tag is not on a commit that matches the release because this action only cares about the tag: it does not build any content itself, it copies it from one organization to another. However it matters that it matches a SHA that is found in the destination repository of the release otherwise it won't be able to set the tag (setting a tag on a non-existing sha does not work).
For both the Forgejo runner and Forgejo itself, copying and signing the release artifacts (container images and binaries) happen on a Forgejo isntance running [behind a VPN](../infrastructure/#octopuce) to safeguard the token that has write access to the Forgejo repository as well as the cryptographic key used to sign the releases.
The following toot can be re-used to announce a minor release at `https://floss.social/@forgejo`. For more significant releases it is best to consider a dedicated and non-standard toot.
```
#Forgejo vX.Y.Z-N was just released! This is a minor patch. Check out the release notes and download it at https://forgejo.org/releases/. If you experience any issues with this release, please report to https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/issues.
An experimental release is published every time [an update of the Forgejo dependencies](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/milestones?q=cleanup) is completed. This release is named after the next stable release, with the `-test` suffix. For instance `v1.22.0-test`.
When the stable release is in its final stages, it is replaced by the release candidates, which changes the suffix to be `-X-rcN`. For instance `v1.22.0-2-rc1`.
A GPG master key with no expiration date is created and shared with members of the Owners team via encrypted email. A subkey with a one year expiration date is created and stored in the secrets repository (`openpgp/20??-release-team.gpg`), to be used by the release pipeline. The public master key is stored in the secrets repository and published where relevant (keys.openpgp.org for instance).
The [forgejo-cascading-pr](https://codeberg.org/forgejo-cascading-pr) user opens pull requests on behalf of other repositories by way of the [cascading-pr action](https://code.forgejo.org/actions/cascading-pr/). It is a regular user, not part of any team. It is only used for that purpose for security reasons.
The [release-team](https://codeberg.org/release-team) user publishes and signs all releases. The associated email is mailto:release@forgejo.org.
The public GPG key used to sign the releases is [EB114F5E6C0DC2BCDD183550A4B61A2DC5923710](https://codeberg.org/release-team.gpg) `Forgejo Releases <release@forgejo.org>`
The [forgejo-experimental-ci](https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental-ci) user is dedicated to provide the application tokens used by the CI to build releases and publish them to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental. It does not (and must not) have permission to publish releases at https://codeberg.org/forgejo.
The https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration organization is dedicated to integration testing. Its purpose is to ensure all artefacts can effectively be published and retrieved by the CI/CD pipelines.
The https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental organization is dedicated to publishing experimental Forgejo releases. They are copied from the https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration organization.
The `forgejo-experimental-ci` user as well as all Forgejo contributors working on the CI/CD pipeline should be owners of both organizations.
