Releasing

This describes how to release Dagger:

🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI ⏱ 30mins
🐹 Go SDK ⏱ 30mins
🐍 Python SDK ⏱ 5mins
⬢ TypeScript SDK ⏱ 5mins
🧪 Elixir SDK ⏱ 5mins
🐘 PHP SDK ⏱ 5mins
☸️ Helm chart ⏱ 2mins
📒 Documentation ⏱ 5mins
🛝 Playground ⏱ 2mins
🌌 Daggerverse ⏱ 2mins
☁️ Dagger Cloud ⏱ 2mins
🪣 Install scripts ⏱ 2mins
🐙 dagger-for-github ⏱ 10mins
🍺 dagger Homebrew ⏱ 2mins
❄️ nix ⏱ 2mins
⚙️ CI ⏱ 2mins

This is a high-level diagram of how all the pieces fit together:

flowchart TB
    repo(["🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger"])
    docs["📒 Documentation"]
    ci["⚙️ CI"]
    repo -.-> docs & ci

    subgraph Dagger
        engine("🚙 Engine")
        cli("🚗 CLI &nbsp;")
    end

    repo ==> engine & cli

    S3["🗄 dl.dagger.io/dagger"]
    brew-tap["🐙 github.com/dagger/homebrew-tap"]
    github-action["🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger-for-github"]
    nix["❄️ github.com/dagger/nix"]
    cli --> S3 ------> brew-tap & github-action & nix

    registry["📦 registry.dagger.io/engine"]
    ghcr["🐙 ghcr.io/dagger/engine"]
    engine --> ghcr --> registry

    go["🐹 Go SDK"]
    go-repo["🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger-go-sdk"]
    go-pkg["🐹 dagger.io/dagger"]
    go-ref["🐹 pkg.go.dev/dagger.io/dagger"]
    playground["🛝 Playground"]
    daggerverse["🌌 Daggerverse"]
    cloud["☁️ Dagger Cloud"]

    repo ==> go --> go-repo --> go-pkg & go-ref
    go-pkg -.-> daggerverse & cloud
    registry -.- S3 -.- go & python & typescript & elixir & php & helm

    registry -.....- playground

    python["🐍 Python SDK"]
    pypi["🐍 pypi.org/project/dagger-io"]
    readthedocs["📖 dagger-io.readthedocs.io"]
    repo ==> python --> pypi & readthedocs

    typescript["⬢ TypeScript SDK"]
    npm["⬢ npmjs.com/@dagger.io/dagger"]
    repo ==> typescript --> npm

    elixir["🧪 Elixir SDK"]
    hex["🧪 hex.pm/packages/dagger"]
    repo ==> elixir --> hex

    php["🐘 PHP SDK"]
    php-repo["🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger-php-sdk"]
    php-pkg["🐘 packagist.org/packages/dagger/dagger"]
    repo ======> php --> php-repo --> php-pkg

    helm["☸️ Helm chart"]
    repo ======> helm

Loading

Let the team know

Before you go ahead and produce a new release, remember that it's a team effort. The first step is to let the team know what is going to happen, preferably a few days in advance so that they can react. To do this:

Create a new milestone in GitHub, e.g. v0.10.1 Milestone
Create a new post in Discord #ask-the-team, e.g. v0.10.1 release - 5th March 2024

This allows others to weigh in whether:

we should go for a patch / minor bump
there are any PRs that people are waiting to get merged
any big features which need to remain experimental?
etc.

Maybe there are breaking changes which we should be aware of and message accordingly. Giving other team members a day or two to react - because timezones! - will make this entire process smoother.

Most importantly, patch vs minor is not a technical decision. If you want to read more about this, see this (private) Discord thread.

If doing a minor release, determine if there are any deprecations that can be removed

Note

Once you know what type of release we are producing - patch vs minor - remember to edit the ? in the Discord thread.

Improve this doc while releasing 改善

In order to keep this relevant & accurate, we improve this doc during the release process. It's the best time to pause, observe how it all fits together, and improve it. We want small, constant improvements which compound. Therefore:

Save a copy of this doc outside of this repository (e.g. ~/Downloads/RELEASING.md). Now open that copy in your editor and start ticking items off it as you make progress. Remember to add / remove / edit any parts which could be improved. As inspiration, see what a past PR with improvements looks like.
Update the date in the shields.io badge, first line in this file.

Note

We believe in documentation first, automation second. Documenting a process forces us to understand it well. Continuously editing this documentation refines our understanding. Once we have a good grasp of the problem space, and reach an elegant solution, it comes natural to automate & speed things up, to make the process more efficient. We should still be able to perform things manually if we need to - because sometimes automation fails 🤷. This is when everyone wishes they had good documentation, the original author(s) or both! It's also worth mentioning that when it's time to improve this automation, we want to be looking at the blueprint - this doc right here - not the implementation. If you ever had to migrate from Chef/Puppet to Ansible/Terraform, you know what it was like to migrate the implementation.

🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI ⏱ `30mins`

Warning

It is important to always do an Engine + CLI release prior to releasing any SDK. This will ensure that all the APIs in the SDK are also available in the Engine it depends on.

Create e.g. .changes/v0.11.3.md by either running changie batch patch (or changie batch minor if this is a new minor).

Note

If you do not have changie installed, see https://changie.dev

Make any necessary edits to the newly generated file, e.g. .changes/v0.11.3.md
Update CHANGELOG.md by running changie merge.
30 mins Submit a PR - e.g. add-v0.11.3-release-notes with the new release notes so that they can be used in the new release. Get the PR reviewed & merged. The merge commit is what gets tagged in the next step.
Ensure that all checks are green ✅ for the <ENGINE_GIT_SHA> on the main branch that you are about to release.
30mins When you have confirmed that all checks are green, run the following:

git checkout main

# If not named "origin" in your local checkout, replace "origin" with whatever the
# github.com/dagger/dagger repo is named for you locally
export DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE=origin

git pull $DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE main

export ENGINE_GIT_SHA="$(git rev-parse --verify HEAD)"
export ENGINE_VERSION="$(changie latest)"
git tag "${ENGINE_VERSION:?must be set}" "${ENGINE_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"

git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" "${ENGINE_VERSION:?must be set}"

# This is required to interpolate $ENGINE_VERSION to the SDK release notes
export CHANGIE_ENGINE_VERSION="$ENGINE_VERSION"

This will kick off .github./workflows/publish.yml. After the publish job in this workflow passes, a new draft PR will automatically be created to bump the Engine version in the various SDKs.

Checkout the bump-engine branch locally & generate changelogs for all SDKs:

# Fill in the value with the PR number of the bump-engine PR just created
export BUMP_ENGINE_PR=

git fetch "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}"
git checkout --track "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}/bump-engine"

cd sdk/go
changie new --kind "Dependencies" --body "Bump Engine to $ENGINE_VERSION" --custom "Author=github-actions" --custom "PR=${BUMP_ENGINE_PR:?must be set}"
changie batch patch
changie merge

cd ../python
changie new --kind "Dependencies" --body "Bump Engine to $ENGINE_VERSION" --custom "Author=github-actions" --custom "PR=${BUMP_ENGINE_PR:?must be set}"
changie batch patch
changie merge

cd ../typescript
changie new --kind "Dependencies" --body "Bump Engine to $ENGINE_VERSION" --custom "Author=github-actions" --custom "PR=${BUMP_ENGINE_PR:?must be set}"
changie batch patch
changie merge

cd ../elixir
changie new --kind "Dependencies" --body "Bump Engine to $ENGINE_VERSION" --custom "Author=github-actions" --custom "PR=${BUMP_ENGINE_PR:?must be set}"
changie batch patch
changie merge

cd ../php
changie new --kind "Dependencies" --body "Bump Engine to $ENGINE_VERSION" --custom "Author=github-actions" --custom "PR=${BUMP_ENGINE_PR:?must be set}"
changie batch patch
changie merge

cd ../..

For the Helm chart, bump version & appVersion in helm/dagger/Chart.yaml
Commit and push the changes with the message Add SDK release notes
30mins Open this draft PR in github.com/dagger/dagger/pulls & click on Ready to review.
After all checks pass, merge this PR. Tip: go to the Files changed tab on the PR to review without an explicit request.

🐹 Go SDK ⏱ `30mins`

Ensure that all checks are green ✅ for the <SDK_GIT_SHA> on the main branch that you are about to release. This will usually be the commit that bumps the Engine version, the one that you merged earlier.

git checkout main
git pull "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}"
git branch -D bump-engine

export SDK_GIT_SHA="$(git rev-parse --verify HEAD)"

Tag & publish:

cd sdk/go && export GO_SDK_VERSION=$(changie latest) && cd ../..
git tag "sdk/go/${GO_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" "sdk/go/${GO_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}"

This will trigger the publish-sdk-go workflow which publishes to 🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger-go-sdk.

20mins Bump the Go SDK version in our internal CI targets & check that Engine tests pass locally. If everything looks good, submit a new PR with this change so that we can check that all our workflows pass with the new SDK version before we create a new GitHub release and make it widely public.

go mod edit -require dagger.io/dagger@${GO_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}
go mod tidy
cd ci
go mod edit -require github.com/dagger/dagger@${ENGINE_VERSION:?must be set}
go mod tidy
cd ..

# Check that the most important workflow works locally (requires local Docker):
./hack/make engine:test

git checkout -b improve-releasing-during-${ENGINE_VERSION:?must be set}

# Update .github/workflows dagger versions $ENGINE_VERSION
# Update docs/current_docs files to point to new dagger version

# Commit & push

# Test using the just-released CLI
# curl -L https://dl.dagger.io/dagger/install.sh | BIN_DIR=$HOME/.local/bin DAGGER_VERSION=0.11.3 sh
# mv ~/.local/bin/dagger{,-0.11.3}
dagger version | grep ${ENGINE_VERSION:?must be set}
dagger run ./hack/make engine:test

After you confirm that our internal tooling works with the new Go SDK release, 🐙 github.com/dagger/dagger-go-sdk, double-check that is was picked up by pkg.go.dev. You can manually request this new version via open https://pkg.go.dev/dagger.io/dagger@${GO_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}. The new version can take up to 60mins to appear, it's OK to move on.

Note

To upload the release notes, we need to have the gh CLI installed, e.g. brew install gh

Upload the release notes by running:

gh release create "sdk/go/${GO_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" \
    --draft --verify-tag --title sdk/go/$GO_SDK_VERSION \
    --notes-file sdk/go/.changes/$GO_SDK_VERSION.md

Check that release notes look good in Preview
⚠️ De-select Set as the latest release (only used for 🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI releases)
Click on Publish release

🐍 Python SDK ⏱ `5mins`

Tag & publish:

git checkout main
cd sdk/python && export PYTHON_SDK_VERSION=$(changie latest) && cd ../..
git tag "sdk/python/${PYTHON_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" sdk/python/${PYTHON_SDK_VERSION}

This will trigger the Publish Python SDK workflow which publishes dagger-io to 🐍 PyPI

Upload the release notes by running:

gh release create "sdk/python/${PYTHON_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" \
    --draft --verify-tag --title sdk/python/$PYTHON_SDK_VERSION \
    --notes-file sdk/python/.changes/$PYTHON_SDK_VERSION.md

⚠️ De-select Set as the latest release (only used for 🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI releases)
Check that release notes look good in Preview. FWIW: https://readthedocs.org/projects/dagger-io/builds/
Click on Publish release

⬢ TypeScript SDK ⏱ `5mins`

Tag & publish:

cd sdk/typescript && export TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION=$(changie latest) && cd ../..
git tag "sdk/typescript/${TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" sdk/typescript/${TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION}

This will trigger the Publish TypeScript SDK workflow which publishes a new version to ⬢ npmjs.com/package/@dagger.io/dagger

Upload the release notes by running:

gh release create "sdk/typescript/${TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" \
    --draft --verify-tag --title sdk/typescript/$TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION \
    --notes-file sdk/typescript/.changes/$TYPESCRIPT_SDK_VERSION.md

Check that release notes look good in Preview
⚠️ De-select Set as the latest release (only used for 🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI releases)
Click on Publish release

🧪 Elixir SDK ⏱ `5mins`

Tag & publish:

cd sdk/elixir && export ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION=$(changie latest) && cd ../..
git tag "sdk/elixir/${ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" sdk/elixir/${ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION}

This will trigger the Publish Elixir SDK workflow which publishes a new version to 🧪 hex.pm/packages/dagger

Upload the release notes by running:

gh release create "sdk/elixir/${ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" \
    --draft --verify-tag --title sdk/elixir/$ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION \
    --notes-file sdk/elixir/.changes/$ELIXIR_SDK_VERSION.md

Check that release notes look good in Preview
⚠️ De-select Set as the latest release (only used for 🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI releases)
Click on Publish release

🐘 PHP SDK ⏱ `5mins`

Tag & publish:

cd sdk/php && export PHP_SDK_VERSION=$(changie latest) && cd ../..
git tag "sdk/php/${PHP_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" sdk/php/${PHP_SDK_VERSION}

This will trigger the Publish PHP SDK workflow which publishes to github.com/dagger/dagger-php-sdk.

Upload the release notes by running:

gh release create "sdk/php/${PHP_SDK_VERSION:?must be set}" \
    --draft --verify-tag --title sdk/php/$PHP_SDK_VERSION \
    --notes-file sdk/php/.changes/$PHP_SDK_VERSION.md

Check that release notes look good in Preview
⚠️ De-select Set as the latest release (only used for 🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI releases)
Click on Publish release

☸️ Helm chart ⏱ `2mins`

Tag & publish:

export HELM_CHART_VERSION="$(awk '/^version: / { print $2 }' helm/dagger/Chart.yaml)"
git tag "helm/chart/v${HELM_CHART_VERSION:?must be set}" "${SDK_GIT_SHA:?must be set}"
git push "${DAGGER_REPO_REMOTE:?must be set}" "helm/chart/v${HELM_CHART_VERSION:?must be set}"

This will trigger the publish-helm-chart workflow which publishes to 🐙 registry.dagger.io/dagger-helm.

📒 Documentation ⏱ `5mins`

Warning

Merging a documentation PR does NOT automatically deploy the new documentation to the production website.

There are two websites for documentation:

Staging: https://devel.docs.dagger.io - Netlify dashboard
Production: https://docs.dagger.io - Netlify dashboard

Staging release

When a PR is merged, a new deployment is created for the documentation site and it is automatically published to https://devel.docs.dagger.io via Netlify.

Use this staging website to test the documentation, including:

verifying that the new content appears in the navigation
verifying internal and external links work correctly
verifying that images appear correctly
etc.

Production release

When a PR is merged, a new production deployment is also created for https://docs.dagger.io. However, this deployment is not automatically published.

After testing the documentation using the staging website and if you are satisfied with it, manually publish the production deployment via Netlify as follows:

Log in to the Netlify dashboard for https://docs.dagger.io.
Refer to the list of "production deploys" and select the one you wish to deploy. Usually, this will be the most recent one. You can confirm this by checking the deployment hash against the latest commit hash in the dagger/dagger repository main branch.
On the deployment page, click the "Preview" button to once again preview/check the deployment. You can also check the deployment log to confirm there were no errors during the documentation build process.
If you are satisfied with the preview, click the "Publish deploy" button. This will publish the selected deployment on https://docs.dagger.io

Note

There have been cases where Netlify builds have failed with errors, but the same build succeeds when performed locally. In the past, one reason for this has been Netlify's use of a stale cache. In case you encounter this error, click "Options -> Clear cache and retry with latest branch commit" to recreate the deployment with a clean cache.

🛝 Playground ⏱ `2mins`

The Dagger Playground is set to automatically update once there's a new release of the Dagger Engine.

Mention in the release thread on Discord that Playground can be updated to the just-released version. cc @marcosnils @matipan @gerhard

🌌 Daggerverse ⏱ `2mins`

Mention in the release thread on Discord that Playground can be updated to the just-released version. cc @marcosnils @matipan @grouville

☁️ Dagger Cloud ⏱ `2mins`

Mention in the release thread on Discord that Dagger Cloud can be updated to the just-released version. cc @marcosnils @matipan @sipsma

🪣 Install scripts ⏱ `2mins`

If the install scripts install.sh or install.ps1 have changed since the last release, they must be manually updated on Amazon S3 (CloudFront should also be manually invalidated). cc @gerhard

🐙 dagger-for-github ⏱ `10mins`

Submit PR with the version bump, e.g. dagger/dagger-for-github#123
Ask @gerhard or @jpadams to review it

Tip

We should automate the above mentioned steps same as we do with the PR which bumps the Engine version, e.g. dagger#7318

Force update the major version, currently v5

git tag --sign --force v5
# Update the date in the comment to e.g. 2024-05-08
git push origin v5 --force

Once this PR is merged, tag the new version

# Find the latest released patch https://github.com/dagger/dagger-for-github/releases 
git tag --sign <NEXT_PATCH_VERSION>
# Use the date as the comment, e.g. 2024-05-08
git push origin <NEXT_PATCH_VERSION> --force

Create a new release from the patch tag (auto-fill release notes via the GitHub UI)

🍺 dagger Homebrew ⏱ `2mins`

Check that Dagger Homebrew formula has been updated to latest, e.g. dagger 0.10.2

❄️ nix ⏱ `2mins`

Check that Dagger nix flake has been updated to latest, e.g. dagger: -> v0.10.2

⚙️ CI ⏱ `2mins`

Mention in the release thread on Discord that our CI can be updated to the just-released version. cc @gerhard @matipan

Last step

When all the above done, remember to add the RELEASING.md changes to the improve-releasing-during-v... PR that you have opened earlier (remember to toggle all the checkboxes back to [ ]). Here is an example: dagger#5658
Close the Discord release thread you created in Let the team know
Close the GitHub milestone you created in Let the team know
- If there are remaining PRs/issues that were not resolved, then move them into the next milestone (or remove it from a milestone entirely)

Provide feedback

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RELEASING.md

RELEASING.md

Releasing

Let the team know

Improve this doc while releasing 改善

🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI ⏱ `30mins`

🐹 Go SDK ⏱ `30mins`

🐍 Python SDK ⏱ `5mins`

⬢ TypeScript SDK ⏱ `5mins`

🧪 Elixir SDK ⏱ `5mins`

🐘 PHP SDK ⏱ `5mins`

☸️ Helm chart ⏱ `2mins`

📒 Documentation ⏱ `5mins`

Staging release

Production release

🛝 Playground ⏱ `2mins`

🌌 Daggerverse ⏱ `2mins`

☁️ Dagger Cloud ⏱ `2mins`

🪣 Install scripts ⏱ `2mins`

🐙 dagger-for-github ⏱ `10mins`

🍺 dagger Homebrew ⏱ `2mins`

❄️ nix ⏱ `2mins`

⚙️ CI ⏱ `2mins`

Last step

Files

RELEASING.md

Latest commit

History

RELEASING.md

File metadata and controls

Releasing

Let the team know

Improve this doc while releasing 改善

🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI ⏱ 30mins

🐹 Go SDK ⏱ 30mins

🐍 Python SDK ⏱ 5mins

⬢ TypeScript SDK ⏱ 5mins

🧪 Elixir SDK ⏱ 5mins

🐘 PHP SDK ⏱ 5mins

☸️ Helm chart ⏱ 2mins

📒 Documentation ⏱ 5mins

Staging release

Production release

🛝 Playground ⏱ 2mins

🌌 Daggerverse ⏱ 2mins

☁️ Dagger Cloud ⏱ 2mins

🪣 Install scripts ⏱ 2mins

🐙 dagger-for-github ⏱ 10mins

🍺 dagger Homebrew ⏱ 2mins

❄️ nix ⏱ 2mins

⚙️ CI ⏱ 2mins

Last step

🚙 Engine + 🚗 CLI ⏱ `30mins`

🐹 Go SDK ⏱ `30mins`

🐍 Python SDK ⏱ `5mins`

⬢ TypeScript SDK ⏱ `5mins`

🧪 Elixir SDK ⏱ `5mins`

🐘 PHP SDK ⏱ `5mins`

☸️ Helm chart ⏱ `2mins`

📒 Documentation ⏱ `5mins`

🛝 Playground ⏱ `2mins`

🌌 Daggerverse ⏱ `2mins`

☁️ Dagger Cloud ⏱ `2mins`

🪣 Install scripts ⏱ `2mins`

🐙 dagger-for-github ⏱ `10mins`

🍺 dagger Homebrew ⏱ `2mins`

❄️ nix ⏱ `2mins`

⚙️ CI ⏱ `2mins`