# Releases

Since Homebrew 1.0.0 most Homebrew users (those who haven't run a `dev-cmd` or
set `HOMEBREW_DEVELOPER=1` which is ~99.9% based on analytics data) require tags
on the [Homebrew/brew repository](https://github.com/homebrew/brew)
in order to get new versions of Homebrew. There are a few steps in making a new
Homebrew release:

1. Check the [Homebrew/brew pull requests](https://github.com/homebrew/brew/pulls),
   [issues](https://github.com/homebrew/brew/issues),
   [Homebrew/homebrew-core issues](https://github.com/homebrew/homebrew-core/issues) and
   [Homebrew/discussions (forum)](https://github.com/homebrew/discussions/discussions) to see if there is
   anything pressing that needs to be fixed or merged before the next release.
   If so, fix and merge these changes.
2. Ensure that no code changes have happened for at least a couple of hours (ideally 4 hours),
   at least one Homebrew/homebrew-core pull request CI job has completed successfully,
   checked the state of the Homebrew/brew `master` CI job (i.e. main jobs green or green after rerunning),
   and that you are confident there are no major regressions on the current `master`,
   branch.
3. Run `brew release` to create a new draft release. For major or minor version bumps,
   pass `--major` or `--minor`, respectively.
4. Publish the draft release on [GitHub](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/releases).

If this is a major or minor release (e.g. X.0.0 or X.Y.0) then there are a few more steps:

1. Before creating the tag you should delete any `odisabled` code, make any
   `odeprecated` code `odisabled`, uncomment any `# odeprecated` code and add
   any new `odeprecations` that are desired.
2. Write up a release notes blog post to <https://brew.sh>
   e.g. [brew.sh#319](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew.sh/pull/319).
   This should use the output from `brew release [--major|--minor]` as input but
   have the wording adjusted to be more human readable and explain not just what has changed but why.
3. When the release has shipped and the blog post has been merged, tweet the
   blog post as the [@MacHomebrew Twitter account](https://twitter.com/MacHomebrew)
   or tweet it yourself and retweet it with the @MacHomebrew Twitter account
   (credentials are in 1Password).
4. Consider whether to submit it to other sources e.g. Hacker News, Reddit.
  - Pros: gets a wider reach and user feedback
  - Cons: negative comments are common and people take this as a chance to
          complain about Homebrew (regardless of their usage)

Please do not manually create a release based on older commits on the `master` branch.
It's very hard to judge whether these have been sufficiently tested by users or if they will
cause negative side-effects with the current state of Homebrew/homebrew-core.
If a new branch is needed ASAP but there are things on `master` that cannot be released yet
(e.g. new deprecations and you want to make a patch release) then revert the relevant PRs,
follow the process above and then revert the reverted PRs to reapply them on `master`.
