radicle-explorer/RELEASE.md

Release process

• In your working shell set the following variables

  VERSION="X.Y.Z"
  RADICLE_DESKTOP_DIR="$(pwd)"                   # absolute path to this repo
  SIGNING_KEY="$HOME/work/apt-signing/rudolfs"   # adjust to your signing key path
  

• Create a new release branch

  rad sync && git fetch
  git checkout -b release/v${VERSION}
  

• Update the version in crates/radicle-tauri/tauri.conf.json.

• Update CHANGELOG.md — only include changes relevant to users.

• Commit the changes git commit -a -m "Release v${VERSION}". This commit is the Release Commit.

• In your working shell, set the release commit SHA

  RELEASE_SHA="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"
  

• Update Arch Linux package info

  • Update pkgver in arch/radicle-desktop/PKGBUILD to match the release version

  • Update _commit in arch/radicle-desktop/PKGBUILD to the release commit created above.

  • Regenerate .SRCINFO with

    cd arch && ./generate-srcinfo.sh
    

  • Commit the changes (from the repo root):

    git add arch/radicle-desktop/.SRCINFO
    git add arch/radicle-desktop/PKGBUILD
    git commit -m "Update arch package to v${VERSION}"
    

• Create a Release Patch with git push rad HEAD:refs/patches

• Wait for CI of the Release Patch to pass

• Wait for approval of the Release Patch and merge it into main

• Build all release artifacts

  scripts/release
  

  This builds the macOS DMG, Linux amd64 deb and AppImage. Artifacts are written to releases/v${VERSION}/.

  To build a single artifact, pass the corresponding flag:

  scripts/release --only-dmg        # macOS aarch64 DMG
  scripts/release --only-deb        # Linux amd64 deb
  scripts/release --only-appimage   # Linux amd64 AppImage
  

  The macOS DMG is built natively. The Linux builds run in an ARM64 Podman container (Dockerfile.release) that cross-compiles Rust to x86_64. The AppImage additionally requires x86_64 emulation via binfmt_misc + QEMU to run linuxdeploy inside the ARM64 container — see scripts/appimage-build for details.

  The Linux builds cache Rust artifacts in named Podman volumes across runs. To start fully from scratch:

  scripts/release --clean && scripts/release
  

  --clean wipes target-release/, node_modules/, all Linux build volumes, and the container image. To only rebuild the container image while keeping the cached volumes (e.g. after updating Dockerfile.release):

  scripts/release --rebuild-image
  

  After the build, install the macOS DMG and start the app to verify that it works.

• Sign the Debian package from radicle-apt-repo

  cd radicle-apt-repo
  rad sync && git fetch
  
  podman build -t apt-import scripts
  podman run --rm \
    -v "$SIGNING_KEY:/src/keys/signing-key" \
    -v "$(pwd):/src/apt" \
    -v "$RADICLE_DESKTOP_DIR/releases/v${VERSION}/radicle-desktop_${VERSION}_amd64.deb:/src/tmp.deb" \
    apt-import
  
  git checkout -b release-v${VERSION}
  git add -A
  git commit -m "Update radicle-desktop to ${VERSION}"
  git push rad HEAD:refs/patches
  
  # Once you get peer approval, merge the patch
  git checkout main
  git merge --ff-only release-v${VERSION}
  git push
  

• Publish the Debian package to the APT repository from radicle-apt-repo

  scp -r -i "$(rad path)/keys/radicle" \
    dists "release@files.radicle.xyz:/mnt/radicle/files/apt/"
  scp -r -i "$(rad path)/keys/radicle" \
    pool "release@files.radicle.xyz:/mnt/radicle/files/apt/"
  

• Publish release files from radicle-desktop

  cd radicle-desktop
  
  scp -i "$(rad path)/keys/radicle" \
    releases/v${VERSION}/* "release@files.radicle.xyz:/mnt/radicle/files/releases/radicle-desktop/latest/"
  

• Publish the Arch package by pushing changes to the Arch User Repository (You need to be a maintainer of the AUR package to push)

  cd arch && ./publish.sh "Release v${VERSION}"
  

• Verify the Arch package version on the AUR

• Resolve the previous release topic on Zulip

• Announce the release on Zulip, following the previous announcement format