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Releasing

Introduction

Argo CD is released in a 2 step automated fashion using GitHub actions. The release process takes about 60 minutes, sometimes a little less, depending on the performance of GitHub Actions runners.

The target release branch must already exist in the GitHub repository. If you for example want to create a release v2.7.0, the corresponding release branch release-2.7 needs to exist, otherwise, the release cannot be built. Also, the trigger tag should always be created in the release branch, checked out in your local repository clone.

Before triggering the release automation, the CHANGELOG.md should be updated with the latest information, and this change should be committed and pushed to the GitHub repository to the release branch. Afterward, the automation can be triggered. This will be automated in the very near future.

Manual steps before release creation:

  • Update CHANGELOG.md with changes for this release
  • Commit & push changes to CHANGELOG.md

The Init ARGOCD Release workflow will perform the following steps:

  • Update VERSION file in the release branch
  • Update manifests with image tags of the new version in the release branch
  • Create a pull request to submit the above changes

The Publish ArgoCD Release workflow will perform the following steps:

  • Build, push, and signs the container image to Quay.io
  • Generate a provenance for the container image
  • Builds the CLI binaries, release-notes, and then creates a GitHub release and attaches the required assets.
  • Generate a provenance for the CLI binaries
  • Generate and sign a sbom
  • Update the stable tag when applicable
  • Update VERSION file in the master branch when a new release is GA

Steps

Step 1 - Update Version and Manifest

  1. Ensure that the TARGET_BRANCH already exist.
  2. Visit the Release GitHub Action and choose which branch you would like to work from.
  3. Enter the TARGET_BRANCH to checkout.
  4. Enter the TARGET_VERSION that will be used to build manifest and VERSION file. (e.g 2.7.0-rc1)

GitHub Release Action

When the action is completed a pull request will be generated that contains the updated manifest and Version file.

  1. Merge the pull request and proceed to step 2.

Step 2 - Tag Release Branch

The steps below need to be executed by someone with write access in Argo CD upstream repo.

  1. Checkout the release branch. Example: git fetch upstream && git checkout release-2.7
  2. Run the script found at hack/trigger-release.sh as follows:
./hack/trigger-release.sh <version> <remote name>

Example: 

./hack/trigger-release.sh v2.7.2 upstream

Tip

The tag must be in one of the following formats to trigger the GH workflow:
* GA: v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH>
* Pre-release: v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH>-rc<RC#>

Once the script is executed successfully, a GitHub workflow will start execution. You can follow its progress under the Actions tab, the name of the action is Publish ArgoCD Release.

Warning

You cannot perform more than one release on the same release branch at the same time.

Verifying automated release

After the automatic release creation has finished, you should perform manual checks to see if the release came out correctly:

  • Check status & output of the GitHub action
  • Check https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/releases to see if the release has been correctly created and if all required assets are attached.
  • Check whether the image has been published on Quay.io correctly

If something went wrong

If something went wrong, damage should be limited. Depending on the steps that have been performed, you will need to manually clean up.

  • If the container image has been pushed to Quay.io, delete it
  • Delete the release (if created) from the Releases page on GitHub

Manual releasing

The release process does not allow a manual release process. Image signatures and provenance need to be created using GitHub Actions.

Notable files that involve the release process.

File Description
goreleaser.yaml Config to build CLI binaries, checksums, release-notes
.github/workflows/image-reuse.yaml Reusable workflow used to generate container images
.github/workflows/init-release.yaml Used to generate manifest and VERSION file
.github/workflows/release.yaml Build image, CLI binaries, provenances, sbom, post jobs
./hack/trigger-release.sh Ensures all pre-requistes are met and pushes the tag