Early Pre-release tasks

• Create a "Release Retro" issue
• Define product versions to include in the next release
• chore: Bump product major/minor levels for Stackable Release 25.7.0 docker-images#1064
• chore: Bump product patch levels for Stackable Release 25.7.0 docker-images#1066
• Run niv update and test via make run-dev (operator-templating)

Pre-release

• chore: Update and release workspace members for Stackable Release 25.7.0 operator-rs#1018
• chore: Pre-release updates for Stackable Release 25.7.0 operator-templating#512
• chore(tracking): Update Rust dependencies of operators before SDP Release 25.7.0 #725
• Run all of the test suites in Jenkins. The following PRs fix discovered issues. A second run was successful.
  • Change UID & GID to 1000/0 docker-images#1193
  • fix: Change GID to 1000 docker-images#1202
  • test: remove old service account assert superset-operator#647
  • test: Remove outdated runAsUser in tls test trino-operator#772
  • fix: Revert "feat: custom version for NiFi (#1172)" docker-images#1199
• chore(tracking): Check and update getting-started scripts before SDP Release 25.7.0 #742
• chore(tracking): Update Helm charts for 25.7.0 demos#235
• chore(tracking): Test demo upgrades on nightly versions for 25.7.0 demos#236
• chore(tracking): Test demos on nightly versions for 25.7.0 demos#242
• Ensure integration tests are successful on OpenShift (run with --test-suite openshift against Replicated OKD) @NickLarsenNZ
• Check stackable-utils scripts in dry-run mode work @NickLarsenNZ
• Search for open issues labeled with scheduled-for/25.7.0
• Search for open PRs labeled with scheduled-for/25.7.0

Release branching

• Create release branch for docker-images
• Create release branches for operators
• Create release branch for demos
• Wait for images to be built before proceeding

Release candidate testing

• chore(tracking): Test demos on rc1 versions for 25.7.0 demos#270

Release tagging

• Create release tag(s) for docker-images
• Create release tag(s) for operators
• Update release version in changelogs on main branches
• Wait for images to be built before proceeding
• Test stackablectl with locally updated (to new release number) releases.yaml @NickLarsenNZ
• chore: Add 25.7.0 release release#38
• Release stackablectl No longer tied to the SDP release cycle

Release verification

• chore(tracking): Check and update getting-started scripts for SDP Release 25.7.0 #751
• Test demos from scratch (25.7.0) We decided to only test hbase-hdfs-load-cycling-data, see below...
• Check that an upgrade can be performed on an existing cluster without data loss (cycling demo) #752
• Run all integration tests (for both x86_64 and aarch64 (defer aarch64 until interu is used)) @NickLarsenNZ
• Ensure integration tests are successful on OpenShift (run with --test-suite openshift against Replicated OKD) @NickLarsenNZ See fix: Spark-connect test timing issues spark-k8s-operator#597

Documentation tasks

• Add to the release notes that we plan on deprecating/removing Hive 3 in an upcoming release
• chore: Add 25.7.0 release crddocs#52
• Create a stackabletech/documentation branch called docs/release-notes-25.7.0
• chore(tracking): Release Notes for SDP 25.7.0 documentation#757
• Update SDP release version in documentation/modules/ROOT/pages/getting-started.adoc and test the release install command
• Cut a release branch (see scripts/make-release-branch.sh)
• Update releases in the playbook (see scripts/publish-new-version.sh)
• Remove any references to HEAD and main from the Antora playbooks on the release branch (replace with the release branch)
• Update antora.yaml version in stackabletech/demos on the release branch - the stackable-utils release-scripts should do this like they do for products and operators.
• Set the release to "Released" in the Feature Tracker and create a new release (ping @lfrancke)
• Update the getting-started page in the main docs and check it works with this release

Marketing tasks

• Write marketing / customer oriented release summary to be published in the marketing channels
• Update the homepage banner (as long as we have it) to point to the new release
• Write a blogpost / news article announcing the new release (optional)
• Write a description of new demos for homepage/demos section
• Announce Release on LinkedIn
• Announce Release in Newsletter (optional)
• Produce a release highlight video (optional)
• Announce Release on Hacker News (optional)
• Post an announcement in the GitHub Discussions Announcement forum and make it a pinned discussion while at the same time removing the old pinned thread
• Post an announcement in Discord
• Post an announcement on DOK Community in the #be-shameless Channel (Ping Lars or Jim)
• Post an announcement via OSBA (Ping Lars, mailto:[email protected])
• Send announcement to Kubernetes Podcast (Ping Lars)
• Send announcement to Heiser
• Ping the stackable-ionos-tech channel or anyone responsible once all tags are created

Post-release tasks

• Upgrade and tests stacks that were skipped in chore(tracking): Test demos on nightly versions for 25.7.0 demos#242
• Test demo upgrades, which were skipped in the previous testing (optional)
• Update the list of supported SDP releases in Jira (ping @Jimvin)
• chore(tracking): OLM Manifests for SDP Release 25.7.0 #754
• Mark any releases older than one year as "end-of-life" in the documentation (update antora.yaml on the applicable branches).
• Release Retro 25.7.0 #723
• Update the release tracking templates (optional)
• Next release: chore(tracking): SDP Release 25.11.0 #759