opentelemetry-go/RELEASING.md

# Release Process

## Pre-Release
Update go.mod for submodules to depend on the new release which will happen
in the next step. This will create build failure for those who depend
on the master branch instead or released version. But they shouldn't be
depending on the master. So it is not a concern.

1. Run the pre-release script. It creates a branch pre_release_<tag> to make the changes.
2. Verify the changes.
3. Push the changes to upstream.
4. Create a PR on github and merge the PR once approved.

    ```
    ./pre_release.sh -t <new tag>
    git diff master
    git push
    ```


## Tag
Now create a new Tag on the commit hash of the changes made in pre-release step.
Use the same tag as used in the pre-release step.

1. Run the tag.sh script.
2. Push tags upstream. Make sure you run this for all sub-modules as well.

    ```
    ./tag.sh -t <new tag> -c <commit-hash>
    git push upstream <new tag>
    git push upstream <submodules-path/new tag>
    ```

## Release
Now create a release for the new tag on github. tag.sh script generates commit logs since
last release. Use that to draft the new release.

## Verify Examples
After releasing run following script to verify that examples build outside of the otel repo.
The script copies examples into a different directory and builds them.

```
./verify_examples.sh
```