[Release-testers] RFC: New Automated Release Workflow (using Issues and Pull Requests)

[Mehdi AMINI via Release-testers]

Hi,





On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 1:15 PM Tom Stellard via Release-testers <
release-testers at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Here is a proposal for a new automated workflow for managing parts of the
> release
> process.  I've been experimenting with this over the past few releases and
> now that we have migrated to GitHub issues, it would be possible for us to
> implement this in the main repo.
>
> The workflow is pretty straight forward, but it does use pull requests.  My
> idea is to enable pull requests for only this automated workflow and not
> for general development (i.e. We would still use Phabricator for code
> review).
> Let me know what you think about this:
>
>
> # Workflow
>
> * On an existing issue or a newly created issue, a user who wants to
> backport
> one or more commits to the release branch adds a comment:
>
> /cherry-pick <commit_sha> <..>
>
> * This starts a GitHub Action job that attempts to cherry-pick the
> commit(s)
> to the current release branch.
>
> * If the commit(s) can be cherry-picked cleanly, then the GitHub Action:
>      * Pushes the result of the cherry-pick to a branch in the
>        llvmbot/llvm-project repo called issue<n>, where n is the number of
> the
>        GitHub Issue that launched the Action.
>
>      * Adds this comment on the issue: /branch
> llvmbot/llvm-project/issue<n>
>
>      * Creates a pull request from llvmbot/llvm-project/issue<n> to
>        llvm/llvm-project/release/XX.x
>
>      * Adds a comment on the issue: /pull-request #<n>
>        where n is the number of the pull request.
>
> * If the commit(s) can't be cherry-picked cleanly, then the GitHub Action
> job adds
> the release:cherry-pick-failed label to the issue and adds a comment:
> "Failed to cherry-pick <commit_sha> <..>" along with a link to the failing
> Action.
>
> * If a user has manually cherry-picked the fixes, resolved the conflicts,
> and
> pushed the result to a branch on github, they can automatically create a
> pull
> request by adding this comment to an issue: /branch <user>/<repo>/<branch>
>
> * Once a pull request has been created, this launches more GitHub Actions
> to run pre-commit tests.
>
> * Once the tests complete successfully and the changes have been approved
> by the release manager, the pull request can me merged into the release
> branch.
>
> * After the pull request is merged, a GitHub Action automatically closes
> the
> associated issue.
>
> Some Examples:
>
> Cherry-pick success: https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/issues/729
> Cherry-pick
> <https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/issues/729Cherry-pick> failure:
> https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/issues/730
> Manual Branch comment: https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/issues/710



Since your workflow can trigger actions from comments in the issues, why do
you need pull-requests at all? Can't you trigger the pre-merge testing
action on the branch from the issue? Then you can "approve" it with a */merge
LGTM* comment in the issue directly and let the action merge it for example.



>
>
>
> # Motivation
>
> Why do this?  The goal is to make the release process more efficient and
> transparent.
> With this new workflow, users can get automatic and immediate feedback
> when a commit
> they want backported doesn't apply cleanly or introduces some test
> failures.  With
> the current process, these kinds of issues are communicated by the release
> manager,
> and it can be days or even weeks before a problem is discovered and
> communicated back
> to the users.
>
> Another advantage of this workflow is it introduces pre-commit CI to the
> release branch,
> which is important for the stability of the branch and the releases, but
> also gives
> the project an opportunity to experiment with new CI workflows in a way
> that
> does not disrupt development on the main branch.
>
> # Implementation
>
> If this proposal is accepted, I would plan to implement this for the LLVM
> 14 release cycle based
> on the following proof of concept that I have been testing for the last
> few releases:
>
>
> https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/blob/release-automation/.github/workflows/release-workflow.yml
>
> https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/blob/release-automation/.github/workflows/release-workflow-create-pr.yml
>
> https://github.com/tstellar/llvm-project/blob/release-automation/.github/workflows/release-merge-pr.yml
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
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