Release process checklist

For all releases (major, minor, patch, and beta)

Note: we follow semantic versioning and the terms major, minor, patch, and beta release are used as in that context.

At GitHub

1. All code changes are internally tested according to the MathJax Development Process.
2. If it is not a patch release, an vN.m-latest branch is created.
3. Double check that MathJax's internal version and package.json is updated as well.
4. Don't forget to repack and recombine the files before merging.
5. Complete the Documentation update process.
6. Once the mathjax/develop branch is deemed ready, it is merged into the mathjax/master (for out-of-line patch releases it is also merged into the branch of the minor version).
7. The release is tagged on GitHub with a tag name such as N.m.p-beta.0; follow the example of preceding release notes.
8. The distribution should then be downloaded and smoke tested.

At CDN

Reference: https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax/wiki/CDN-Hosting-at-Google-Cloud-Storage

1. The GCS buckets are: cdn.mathjax.org for regular releases & beta.mathjax.org for beta releases
2. Create or update mathjax/N.m-latest/ and update mathjax/latest/ -- unless it's a patch release for an older version, then just update mathjax/N.m-latest.
3. When fonts change, you'll need to fix mime-type headers. If there were no updates, it's faster to copy the fonts from latest to N.m-latest in the cloud.
4. If updated, check the custom headers of fonts (e.g., via curl).
5. Purge the cache: it seems CloudFlare picks up changes to GCS immediately. But to be sure, purge the changed files or the entire CDN via the CloudFlare Web Interface.

At mathjax.org

1. For major and minor releases, a news announcement for the release is posted. The post should follow the announcement for previous versions, in particular
   • Summary of what changed in the release
   • Advise regarding the CDN propagation (clear browser cache etc)
   • Point to the release
   • Give instructions for reporting bugs, and refer questions to MathJax Users
   • A copy of the What's new document from the documenation
2. Extract from this a press release (again, follow previous examples).

For the community

• Send word to the MathJax sponsors
• Announcement should be posted to the User Groups at mathjax-dev and mathjax-users
  • Advise regarding the CDN propagation (clear browser cache etc)
• The new post should be announced on social media channels, see MathJax-web-presence.
• The press release should be pushed to MailChimp.

Note for patch release

Note that our policy is that we don't create tracking branches or documentation branches for patch releases.

From the documentation:

If a packaged release receives any important updates, then those updates will be part of the branch for that version. The link to the .zip file in the download list will be the original release version, not the patched version. To obtain the patched version, use the Branches drop down menu (at the far left of the menus within the page) to select the release branch that you want (for example v1.1-latest), and then use the download button and the Download .tar.gz or Download .zip button to get the latest patched version of that release.