The Forgejo release numbers are compliant with [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/). They are followed by the Gitea release number with which it is compatible. For instance:
- Push the vX.Y.Z+A.B.C tag to https://codeberg.org/forgejo-integration/forgejo to trigger a workflow that will publish the release in https://codeberg.org/forgejo-experimental/forgejo
- Push the vX.Y.Z+A.B.C 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.Y.Z+A.B.C` milestone set to the date of the release
- Create an issue named `[RELEASE] Forgejo vX.Y.Z+A.B.C` 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.Y.Z+A.B.C`
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.
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+A.B.C 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+A.B.C 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.
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.
