Release Candidates

Push a semver tag to main. Something like:
- git tag -a v1.2.0-rc.0
- git push origin v1.2.0-rc.0
This will initiate the build process in Github Actions and Drone. The tagged docker image should be available here shortly: https://hub.docker.com/r/grafana/tempo/tags?page=1&ordering=last_updated
A Github Release Draft should also be available here: https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases
- Copy over the CHANGELOG entries for the release
- Call out contributors for their work
- Cull unnecessary changes that don't impact the Tempo binary or deployment
- Call out breaking changes!
Publish the release making sure that "This is a pre-release" is checked.

Releases

This document details release procedures for Tempo. Currently it's pretty dang easy.

Follow all steps in Release Candidates except:
- Drop the -rc.# postfix from the tag. For instance use v1.2.0 instead. Something like:
  - git tag -a v1.2.0
  - git push origin v1.2.0
- Make sure that the "This is a pre-release" is unchecked when publishing the release.
Submit a PR cleaning up the changelog and moving everything under "main/unreleased" to be under the newly minted version.
In github releases there should be a "Draft" release. Pretty up the changelog, add it to the release notes and hit "Publish release". Make sure that "Set as the latest release" is checked.
Update helm
- Submit PRs to github.com/grafana/helm-charts to update to the newly cut version.
  - One PR each for the tempo, tempo-distributed and tempo-vulture helm charts.
  - Search the chart for the previous version and udpate each version number to current.

Patches release should be cut for serious bug fixes or security issues.

A release branch should exist per instructions above. It will be named: git checkout release-vX.Y
Commits should already have been backported to this branch using backport automation, but if you need to add more you can cherry-pick them: git cherry-pick <commit hash>
Push the commit
git push
Create and push a tag to initiate the release. This will be pushed to the release branch. git tag -a v1.0.1
git push origin v1.0.1
This triggers the build.
Submit a PR to main cleaning up the changelog and moving those entries in the patch release under "main/unreleased" to be under the newly minted version.
In github releases there should be a "Draft" release. Pretty up the changelog, add it to the release notes and hit "Publish release". Make sure that "Set as the latest release" is checked.
Submit a PR to the Helm repo as described above.