How is Django Formed?

This document explains how to release Django.

Please, keep these instructions up-to-date if you make changes! The point here is to be descriptive, not prescriptive, so feel free to streamline or otherwise make changes, but update this document accordingly!

Overview

There are three types of releases that you might need to make:

  • Security releases: disclosing and fixing a vulnerability. This’ll generally involve two or three simultaneous releases – e.g. 3.2.x, 4.0.x, and, depending on timing, perhaps a 4.1.x.
  • Regular version releases: either a final release (e.g. 4.1) or a bugfix update (e.g. 4.1.1).
  • Pre-releases: e.g. 4.2 alpha, beta, or rc.

The short version of the steps involved is:

  1. If this is a security release, pre-notify the security distribution list one week before the actual release.
  2. Proofread the release notes, looking for organization and writing errors. Draft a blog post and email announcement.
  3. Update version numbers and create the release package(s).
  4. Upload the package(s) to the djangoproject.com server.
  5. Verify package(s) signatures, check if they can be installed, and ensure minimal functionality.
  6. Upload the new version(s) to PyPI.
  7. Declare the new version in the admin on djangoproject.com.
  8. Post the blog entry and send out the email announcements.
  9. Update version numbers post-release.

There are a lot of details, so please read on.

Prerequisites

You’ll need a few things before getting started:

  • A GPG key. If the key you want to use is not your default signing key, you’ll need to add -u you@example.com to every GPG signing command below, where you@example.com is the email address associated with the key you want to use. You will also need to add -i you@example.com to the twine call.

  • An install of some required Python packages:

    $ python -m pip install wheel twine

  • Access to Django’s project on PyPI. Create a project-scoped token following the official documentation and set up your $HOME/.pypirc file like this:

    ~/.pypirc
    [distutils]
  index-servers =
    pypi
    django

[pypi]
  username = __token__
  password = # User-scoped or project-scoped token, to set as the default.

[django]
  repository = https://upload.pypi.org/legacy/
  username = __token__
  password = # A project token.

  • Access to the djangoproject.com server to upload files.

  • Access to the admin on djangoproject.com as a “Site maintainer”.

  • Access to post to django-announce.

  • If this is a security release, access to the pre-notification distribution list.

If this is your first release, you’ll need to coordinate with another releaser to get all these things lined up.

Pre-release tasks

A few items need to be taken care of before even beginning the release process. This stuff starts about a week before the release; most of it can be done any time leading up to the actual release:

  1. If this is a security release, send out pre-notification one week before the release. The template for that email and a list of the recipients are in the private django-security GitHub wiki. BCC the pre-notification recipients. Sign the email with the key you’ll use for the release and include CVE IDs (requested with Vendor: djangoproject, Product: django) and patches for each issue being fixed. Also, notify django-announce of the upcoming security release.

  2. As the release approaches, watch Trac to make sure no release blockers are left for the upcoming release.

  3. Check with the other mergers to make sure they don’t have any uncommitted changes for the release.

  4. Proofread the release notes, including looking at the online version to catch any broken links or reST errors, and make sure the release notes contain the correct date.

  5. Double-check that the release notes mention deprecation timelines for any APIs noted as deprecated, and that they mention any changes in Python version support.

  6. Double-check that the release notes index has a link to the notes for the new release; this will be in docs/releases/index.txt.

  7. If this is a feature release, ensure translations from Transifex have been integrated. This is typically done by a separate translation’s manager rather than the releaser, but here are the steps. Provided you have an account on Transifex:

    $ python scripts/manage_translations.py fetch

    and then commit the changed/added files (both .po and .mo). Sometimes there are validation errors which need to be debugged, so avoid doing this task immediately before a release is needed.

  8. Update the django-admin manual page:

    $ cd docs
$ make man
$ man _build/man/django-admin.1  # do a quick sanity check
$ cp _build/man/django-admin.1 man/django-admin.1

    and then commit the changed man page.

  9. If this is the alpha release of a new series, create a new stable branch from main. For example, when releasing Django 4.2:

    $ git checkout -b stable/4.2.x origin/main
$ git push origin -u stable/4.2.x:stable/4.2.x

    At the same time, update the django_next_version variable in docs/conf.py on the stable release branch to point to the new development version. For example, when creating stable/4.2.x, set django_next_version to '5.0' on the new branch.

  10. If this is the “dot zero” release of a new series, create a new branch from the current stable branch in the django-docs-translations repository. For example, when releasing Django 4.2:

    $ git checkout -b stable/4.2.x origin/stable/4.1.x
$ git push origin stable/4.2.x:stable/4.2.x

Preparing for release

Write the announcement blog post for the release. You can enter it into the admin at any time and mark it as inactive. Here are a few examples: example security release announcement, example regular release announcement, example pre-release announcement.

Actually rolling the release

OK, this is the fun part, where we actually push out a release!

  1. Check Jenkins is green for the version(s) you’re putting out. You probably shouldn’t issue a release until it’s green.

  2. A release always begins from a release branch, so you should make sure you’re on a stable branch and up-to-date. For example:

    $ git checkout stable/4.1.x
$ git pull

  3. If this is a security release, merge the appropriate patches from django-security. Rebase these patches as necessary to make each one a plain commit on the release branch rather than a merge commit. To ensure this, merge them with the --ff-only flag; for example:

    $ git checkout stable/4.1.x
$ git merge --ff-only security/4.1.x

    (This assumes security/4.1.x is a branch in the django-security repo containing the necessary security patches for the next release in the 4.1 series.)

    If git refuses to merge with --ff-only, switch to the security-patch branch and rebase it on the branch you are about to merge it into (git checkout security/4.1.x; git rebase stable/4.1.x) and then switch back and do the merge. Make sure the commit message for each security fix explains that the commit is a security fix and that an announcement will follow (example security commit).

  4. For a feature release, remove the UNDER DEVELOPMENT header at the top of the release notes and add the release date on the next line. For a patch release, remove the Expected prefix and update the release date, if necessary. Make this change on all branches where the release notes for a particular version are located.

  5. Update the version number in django/__init__.py for the release. Please see notes on setting the VERSION tuple below for details on VERSION.

  6. If this is a pre-release package, update the “Development Status” trove classifier in setup.cfg to reflect this. Otherwise, make sure the classifier is set to Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable.

  7. Tag the release using git tag. For example:

    $ git tag --sign --message="Tag 4.1.1" 4.1.1

    You can check your work by running git tag --verify <tag>.

  8. Push your work, including the tag: git push --tags.

  9. Make sure you have an absolutely clean tree by running git clean -dfx.

  10. Run make -f extras/Makefile to generate the release packages. This will create the release packages in a dist/ directory.

  11. Generate the hashes of the release packages:

    $ cd dist
$ md5sum *
$ sha1sum *
$ sha256sum *

  12. Create a “checksums” file, Django-<<VERSION>>.checksum.txt containing the hashes and release information. Start with this template and insert the correct version, date, GPG key ID (from gpg --list-keys --keyid-format LONG), release manager’s GitHub username, release URL, and checksums:

    This file contains MD5, SHA1, and SHA256 checksums for the source-code
tarball and wheel files of Django <<VERSION>>, released <<DATE>>.

To use this file, you will need a working install of PGP or other
compatible public-key encryption software. You will also need to have
the Django release manager's public key in your keyring. This key has
the ID ``XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX`` and can be imported from the MIT
keyserver, for example, if using the open-source GNU Privacy Guard
implementation of PGP:

    gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

or via the GitHub API:

    curl https://github.com/<<RELEASE MANAGER GITHUB USERNAME>>.gpg | gpg --import -

Once the key is imported, verify this file:

    gpg --verify <<THIS FILENAME>>

Once you have verified this file, you can use normal MD5, SHA1, or SHA256
checksumming applications to generate the checksums of the Django
package and compare them to the checksums listed below.

Release packages
================

https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/<<MAJOR VERSION>>/<<RELEASE TAR.GZ FILENAME>>
https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/<<MAJOR VERSION>>/<<RELEASE WHL FILENAME>>

MD5 checksums
=============

<<MD5SUM>>  <<RELEASE TAR.GZ FILENAME>>
<<MD5SUM>>  <<RELEASE WHL FILENAME>>

SHA1 checksums
==============

<<SHA1SUM>>  <<RELEASE TAR.GZ FILENAME>>
<<SHA1SUM>>  <<RELEASE WHL FILENAME>>

SHA256 checksums
================

<<SHA256SUM>>  <<RELEASE TAR.GZ FILENAME>>
<<SHA256SUM>>  <<RELEASE WHL FILENAME>>

  13. Sign the checksum file (gpg --clearsign --digest-algo SHA256 Django-<version>.checksum.txt). This generates a signed document, Django-<version>.checksum.txt.asc which you can then verify using gpg --verify Django-<version>.checksum.txt.asc.

If you’re issuing multiple releases, repeat these steps for each release.

Making the release(s) available to the public

Now you’re ready to actually put the release out there. To do this:

  1. Upload the release package(s) to the djangoproject server, replacing A.B. with the appropriate version number, e.g. 4.1 for a 4.1.x release:

    $ scp Django-* djangoproject.com:/home/www/www/media/releases/A.B

    If this is the alpha release of a new series, you will need to create the directory A.B.

  2. Upload the checksum file(s):

    $ scp Django-A.B.C.checksum.txt.asc djangoproject.com:/home/www/www/media/pgp/Django-A.B.C.checksum.txt

  3. Test that the release packages install correctly using pip. Here’s one method:

    $ RELEASE_VERSION='4.1.1'
$ MAJOR_VERSION=`echo $RELEASE_VERSION| cut -c 1-3`

$ python -m venv django-pip
$ . django-pip/bin/activate
$ python -m pip install https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/$MAJOR_VERSION/Django-$RELEASE_VERSION.tar.gz
$ deactivate
$ python -m venv django-pip-wheel
$ . django-pip-wheel/bin/activate
$ python -m pip install https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/$MAJOR_VERSION/Django-$RELEASE_VERSION-py3-none-any.whl
$ deactivate

    This just tests that the tarballs are available (i.e. redirects are up) and that they install correctly, but it’ll catch silly mistakes.

  4. Run the confirm-release build on Jenkins to verify the checksum file(s) (e.g. use 4.2rc1 for https://media.djangoproject.com/pgp/Django-4.2rc1.checksum.txt).

  5. Upload the release packages to PyPI (for pre-releases, only upload the wheel file):

    $ twine upload -s dist/*

  6. Go to the Add release page in the admin, enter the new release number exactly as it appears in the name of the tarball (Django-<version>.tar.gz). So for example enter “4.1.1” or “4.2rc1”, etc. If the release is part of an LTS branch, mark it so.

    If this is the alpha release of a new series, also create a Release object for the final release, ensuring that the Release date field is blank, thus marking it as unreleased. For example, when creating the Release object for 4.2a1, also create 4.2 with the Release date field blank.

  7. Make the blog post announcing the release live.

  8. For a new version release (e.g. 4.1, 4.2), update the default stable version of the docs by flipping the is_default flag to True on the appropriate DocumentRelease object in the docs.djangoproject.com database (this will automatically flip it to False for all others); you can do this using the site’s admin.

    Create new DocumentRelease objects for each language that has an entry for the previous release. Update djangoproject.com’s robots.docs.txt file by copying entries from manage_translations.py robots_txt from the current stable branch in the django-docs-translations repository. For example, when releasing Django 4.2:

    $ git checkout stable/4.2.x
$ git pull
$ python manage_translations.py robots_txt

  9. Post the release announcement to the django-announce, django-developers, django-users mailing lists, and the Django Forum. This should include a link to the announcement blog post.

  10. If this is a security release, send a separate email to oss-security@lists.openwall.com. Provide a descriptive subject, for example, “Django” plus the issue title from the release notes (including CVE ID). The message body should include the vulnerability details, for example, the announcement blog post text. Include a link to the announcement blog post.

  11. Add a link to the blog post in the topic of the #django IRC channel: /msg chanserv TOPIC #django new topic goes here.

Post-release

You’re almost done! All that’s left to do now is:

  1. Update the VERSION tuple in django/__init__.py again, incrementing to whatever the next expected release will be. For example, after releasing 4.1.1, update VERSION to VERSION = (4, 1, 2, 'alpha', 0).
  2. Add the release in Trac’s versions list if necessary (and make it the default by changing the default_version setting in the code.djangoproject.com’s trac.ini, if it’s a final release). The new X.Y version should be added after the alpha release and the default version should be updated after “dot zero” release.
  3. If it’s a final release, update the current stable branch and remove the pre-release branch in the Django release process on Trac.
  4. If this was a security release, update Archive of security issues with details of the issues addressed.

New stable branch tasks

There are several items to do in the time following the creation of a new stable branch (often following an alpha release). Some of these tasks don’t need to be done by the releaser.

  1. Create a new DocumentRelease object in the docs.djangoproject.com database for the new version’s docs, and update the docs/fixtures/doc_releases.json JSON fixture, so people without access to the production DB can still run an up-to-date copy of the docs site.
  2. Create a stub release note for the new feature version. Use the stub from the previous feature release version or copy the contents from the previous feature version and delete most of the contents leaving only the headings.
  3. Increase the default PBKDF2 iterations in django.contrib.auth.hashers.PBKDF2PasswordHasher by about 20% (pick a round number). Run the tests, and update the 3 failing hasher tests with the new values. Make sure this gets noted in the release notes (see the 4.1 release notes for an example).
  4. Remove features that have reached the end of their deprecation cycle. Each removal should be done in a separate commit for clarity. In the commit message, add a “refs #XXXX” to the original ticket where the deprecation began if possible.
  5. Remove .. versionadded::, .. versionadded::, and .. deprecated:: annotations in the documentation from two releases ago. For example, in Django 4.2, notes for 4.0 will be removed.
  6. Add the new branch to Read the Docs. Since the automatically generated version names (“stable-A.B.x”) differ from the version names used in Read the Docs (“A.B.x”), create a ticket requesting the new version.
  7. Request the new classifier on PyPI. For example Framework :: Django :: 3.1.
  8. Update the current branch under active development and add pre-release branch in the Django release process on Trac.

Notes on setting the VERSION tuple

Django’s version reporting is controlled by the VERSION tuple in django/__init__.py. This is a five-element tuple, whose elements are:

  1. Major version.
  2. Minor version.
  3. Micro version.
  4. Status – can be one of “alpha”, “beta”, “rc” or “final”.
  5. Series number, for alpha/beta/RC packages which run in sequence (allowing, for example, “beta 1”, “beta 2”, etc.).

For a final release, the status is always “final” and the series number is always 0. A series number of 0 with an “alpha” status will be reported as “pre-alpha”.

Some examples:

  • (4, 1, 1, "final", 0) → “4.1.1”
  • (4, 2, 0, "alpha", 0) → “4.2 pre-alpha”
  • (4, 2, 0, "beta", 1) → “4.2 beta 1”
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