Beta (Monday the week prior to release)

• Update the version in package.json
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date
• Update CHANGELOG.md
  • Create a new section for this release
  • Run news (typically python news | code-insiders -)
  • Touch up news entries (and corresponding news entry files)
  • Copy over the "Thanks" section from the previous release
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt
  • Run tpn (typically python tpn --npm package-lock.json --config tpn/distribution.toml ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt)
  • Register any Python changes with OSPO
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Repository.txt and register any changes with OSPO
• Open appropriate documentation issues

Release candidate (Monday before release)

• Announce feature freeze
• Ensure all new feature usages are tracked via telemetry
• Update the version in package.json
• Run npm install to make sure package-lock.json is up-to-date
• Update CHANGELOG.md
  • Update version and date for the release section
  • Run news (typically python news --final | code-insiders -)
  • Touch up news entries (and corresponding news entry files)
  • Check that the "Thanks" section is up-to-date
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt
  • Run tpn (typically python tpn --npm package-lock.json --config tpn/distribution.toml ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt)
  • Register any Python changes with OSPO
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Repository.txt and register any changes with OSPO
• Create the release- branch
• Open appropriate documentation issues
• Begin drafting a blog post

Final (around a VS Code release)

Preparation

[Final PR should be against the release- branch and then cherrypicked into master]

• Make sure the appropriate pull requests for the documentation -- including the WOW page -- are ready
• Update the version in package.json
• 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 CHANGELOG.md
  • Update version and date for the release section
  • Run news (typically python news --final | code-insiders -)
  • Check that the "Thanks" section is up-to-date
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt
  • Run tpn (typically python tpn --npm package-lock.json --config tpn/distribution.toml ThirdPartyNotices-Distribution.txt)
  • Register any Python changes with OSPO
• Update ThirdPartyNotices-Repository.txt and register any changes with OSPO

Release

• Make sure CI is passing
• Generate the final .vsix file
• Make sure no extraneous files are being included in the .vsix file (make sure to check for hidden files)
• Upload the final .vsix file to the marketplace
• Publish documentation changes
• Publish the blog post
• Create a release on GitHub (which creates an appropriate git tag)
• Determine if a hotfix is needed
• Merge release-* branch into master

Prep for the next release

• Bump the version number to the next alpha
• Lift the feature freeze
• Create a new release plan

Clean up after this release

• Clean up any straggling fixed issues needing validation
• Delete the previous releases' branch
• Go through needs more info issues and close any that have no activity for over a month