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!
There are three types of releases that you might need to make:
The short version of the steps involved is:
djangoproject.com server.djangoproject.com.There are a lot of details, so please read on.
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.
An install of some required Python packages:
$ python -m pip install wheel twine
Access to Django’s record on PyPI. Create a file with your credentials:
~/.pypirc¶[pypi]
username:YourUsername
password:YourPassword
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.
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:
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.
As the release approaches, watch Trac to make sure no release blockers are left for the upcoming release.
Check with the other committers to make sure they don’t have any uncommitted changes for the release.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If this is the alpha release of a new series, create a new stable branch from main. For example, when releasing Django 3.1:
$ git checkout -b stable/3.1.x origin/main
$ git push origin -u stable/3.1.x:stable/3.1.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.
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 2.2:
$ git checkout -b stable/2.2.x origin/stable/2.1.x
$ git push origin stable/2.2.x:stable/2.2.x
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.
OK, this is the fun part, where we actually push out a release!
Check Jenkins is green for the version(s) you’re putting out. You probably shouldn’t issue a release until it’s green.
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/1.5.x
$ git pull
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/1.5.x
$ git merge --ff-only security/1.5.x
(This assumes security/1.5.x is a branch in the django-security repo
containing the necessary security patches for the next release in the 1.5
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/1.5.x; git rebase stable/1.5.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).
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, replace *Under Development* with the release date. Make
this change on all branches where the release notes for a particular version
are located.
Update the version number in django/__init__.py for the release.
Please see notes on setting the VERSION tuple below for details
on VERSION.
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.
Tag the release using git tag. For example:
$ git tag --sign --message="Tag 1.5.1" 1.5.1
You can check your work by running git tag --verify <tag>.
Push your work, including the tag: git push --tags.
Make sure you have an absolutely clean tree by running git clean -dfx.
Run make -f extras/Makefile to generate the release packages. This will
create the release packages in a dist/ directory.
Generate the hashes of the release packages:
$ cd dist
$ md5sum *
$ sha1sum *
$ sha256sum *
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/<<RELEASE TAR.GZ FILENAME>>
https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/<<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>>
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.
Now you’re ready to actually put the release out there. To do this:
Upload the release package(s) to the djangoproject server, replacing A.B. with the appropriate version number, e.g. 1.5 for a 1.5.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.
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
Test that the release packages install correctly using easy_install
and pip. Here’s one method:
$ RELEASE_VERSION='1.7.2'
$ MAJOR_VERSION=`echo $RELEASE_VERSION| cut -c 1-3`
$ python -m venv django-easy-install
$ . django-easy-install/bin/activate
$ easy_install https://www.djangoproject.com/m/releases/$MAJOR_VERSION/Django-$RELEASE_VERSION.tar.gz
$ deactivate
$ 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.
Ask a few people on IRC to verify the checksums by visiting the checksums
file (e.g. https://media.djangoproject.com/pgp/Django-1.5b1.checksum.txt)
and following the instructions in it. For bonus points, they can also unpack
the downloaded release tarball and verify that its contents appear to be
correct (proper version numbers, no stray .pyc or other undesirable
files).
Upload the release packages to PyPI (for pre-releases, only upload the wheel file):
$ twine upload -s dist/*
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 “1.5.1” or “1.4c2”, 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 3.1a1, also create 3.1 with the Release date field blank.
Make the blog post announcing the release live.
For a new version release (e.g. 1.5, 1.6), 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 2.2:
$ git checkout stable/2.2.x
$ git pull
$ python manage_translations.py robots_txt
Post the release announcement to the django-announce, django-developers, and django-users mailing lists. This should include a link to the announcement blog post.
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.
Add a link to the blog post in the topic of the #django IRC channel:
/msg chanserv TOPIC #django new topic goes here.
You’re almost done! All that’s left to do now is:
VERSION tuple in django/__init__.py again,
incrementing to whatever the next expected release will be. For
example, after releasing 1.5.1, update VERSION to
VERSION = (1, 5, 2, 'alpha', 0).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.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.
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.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 1.8 release notes for an example)... versionadded::, .. versionadded::, and .. deprecated::
annotations in the documentation from two releases ago. For example, in
Django 1.9, notes for 1.7 will be removed.Framework :: Django :: 3.1.Django’s version reporting is controlled by the VERSION tuple in
django/__init__.py. This is a five-element tuple, whose elements
are:
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:
(1, 2, 1, 'final', 0) → “1.2.1”(1, 3, 0, 'alpha', 0) → “1.3 pre-alpha”(1, 3, 0, 'beta', 2) → “1.3 beta 2”Jul 28, 2023