Release tracking ticket template

This is the template to be used to create release tracking tickets. Copy this into a new issue and fill in the TODOs. Those items marked with major-only can be ignored for minor releases.

This is the release checklist for the TODO milestone. See #16816 (closed) for the template that this was derived from.

Pre-fork checklist (major-only)

When forking a new release branch for a new major release series (e.g. ghc-9.0), please check the following:

• Verify that haddock's development branch (namely the branch corresponding to GHC's previous major release, e.g. ghc-8.10) has been merged into ghc-head.
• Remove the release notes for the previous release (e.g. docs/users_guide/8.6.*-notes.rst)
• In configure.ac update MinBootGhcVersion to be the major version of the last supported bootstrap compiler. We currently guarantee bootstrapping with the last two major releases; therefore, when preparing, e.g., GHC 9.4 you should set MinBootGhcVersion to 9.0.
• Create the new branch: git branch ghc-9.0
• In the new branch bump the version number in configure.ac to, e.g., 9.0
• In master bump the version number to that of the next development series, e.g., 9.1
• Tag this master commit as, e.g., ghc-9.1-start
• Push all of the above tags and branches
• After forking remove release notes from master and start a new set of release notes for the next release

Pre-release checklist

• Ensure that submodules are on released tags (the below is produced using this script):
  • libraries/Cabal: version todo
  • libraries/Win32: version todo
  • libraries/binary: version todo
  • libraries/bytestring: version todo
  • libraries/containers: version todo
  • libraries/deepseq: version todo
  • libraries/directory: version todo
  • libraries/filepath: version todo
  • libraries/haskeline: version todo
  • libraries/mtl: version todo
  • libraries/parsec: version todo
  • libraries/pretty: version todo
  • libraries/process: version todo
  • libraries/terminfo: version todo
  • libraries/text: version todo
  • libraries/time: version todo
  • libraries/transformers: version todo
  • libraries/unix: version todo
  • libraries/xhtml: version todo
  • utils/haddock: version todo
  • utils/hsc2hs: version todo
• Non-released submodules up-to-date:
  • nofib (upstream: ghc/nofib>)
  • libffi-tarballs (upstream: ghc/libffi-tarballs>)
  • libraries/ghc-bignum/gmp/gmp-tarballs (upstream: ghc/gmp-tarballs>)
• Release notes (docs/users_guide/x.y.z-notes.rst) written
• Release notes linked in docs/users_guide/release-notes.rst
• autoconf scripts updated
• Update the Hadrian bootstrap metadata
• Check that Unicode database in base (libraries/base/cbits/README.Unicode) reflects current standard release (http://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/).
• LlvmVersion in configure.ac is targetting intended LLVM version
• Release notes mentions LLVM version requirement
• llvm-targets file updated
• Changelogs updated (these can be checked using .gitlab/linters/check-changelogs.sh):
  • libraries/ghc-prim
  • libraries/ghc-bignum
  • libraries/hpc (upstream: ghc/hpc>)
  • libraries/base
• Verify that the ~"backport needed" label has no more issues/merge requests needing backport
• Verify that all CI builds are green before moving to release checklist
• Update hadrian bootstrap plans for the latest compiler releases

Release checklist

• Ensure that the Migration page is up-to-date
• Push a provision provisional release commit to trigger the release builds using git push -o ci.variable="RELEASE_JOB=yes"
• Wait until builds finish; verify that they finished successfully
• Fetch release artifacts TODO: documentation
• Sign and push release artifacts to downloads.haskell.org [TODO: documentation]
• Make a release tag
• Release/revise GHC-maintained libraries on Hackage using this script:
  • libraries/base
  • libraries/ghc-prim
  • libraries/array
  • libraries/stm
  • libraries/ghc-heap
  • libraries/ghc-compact
  • libraries/ghc-boot
  • libraries/ghc-boot-th
  • libraries/hpc
  • libraries/libiserv
  • libraries/template-haskell
  • libraries/ghc-bignum
• Update ghc/homepage>:
  • Write download page (see ghc/homepage>)
  • Add news item to index.html
  • Add link to download.shtml. Be sure to link to the Migration guide.
  • Look over changes locally
  • Add release announcement to GHC blog. Be sure to link to the Migration guide.
  • Push changes to master
• Announce on: GHC developers <ghc-devs@haskell.org>, GHC Users <glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org>, Haskell Cafe <haskell-cafe@haskell.org>
• Announce on: Haskell Discourse, /r/haskell, Twitter
• Update latest symlink on downloads.haskell.org

Post-release checklist

• Update the Wiki status page
• Update the language pragma history
• Mark milestone as closed
• Update /topic in #ghc
• Update the VersionHistory wiki page
• Set RELEASE=NO
• Create a release tracking ticket for the next release using the template in #16816 (closed)