brew/docs/Releases.md
2021-01-21 18:30:17 -05:00

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Releases

Since Homebrew 1.0.0 most Homebrew users (those who haven't run a dev-cmd or set HOMEBREW_DEVELOPER=1) require tags on the Homebrew/brew repository 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, issues, Homebrew/core issues and Homebrew/discussions (forum) 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 24 hours) 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.

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 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. This should use brew release-notes 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 or tweet it yourself and retweet it with the @MacHomebrew Twitter account (credentials are in 1Password).
  4. Send the email to the Homebrew TinyLetter email list (credentials are in 1Password).
  5. 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)