Add a release guide

Signed-off-by: Håkon Wiik Ånes <[email protected]>

RELEASE.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+How to make a new release of pyxem
+==================================
+
+pyxem versioning tries its best to adhere to `Semantic Versioning
+<https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html>`__.
+See the `Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) 440 <https://peps.python.org/pep-0440/>`__
+for supported version identifiers.
+
+Preparation
+-----------
+- Locally, create release branch from the ``main`` branch.
+
+- Run tutorial notebooks and examples in the documentation locally and confirm that they
+  produce the expected results.
+  From time to time, check the documentation links (``make linkchecker``) and fix any
+  broken ones.
+
+- Review the contributor list ``credits`` in ``pyxem/release_info.py`` to ensure all
+  contributors are included and sorted correctly.
+  Do the same for the Zenodo contributors file ``.zenodo.json``.
+
+- Increment the version number in ``pyxem/release_info.py``.
+  Review and clean up ``CHANGELOG.rst`` as per Keep a Changelog.
+
+- Make a PR of the release branch to ``main``.
+  Discuss the changelog with others, and make any changes *directly* to the release
+  branch.
+  Merge the branch into ``main``.
+
+Tag and release
+---------------
+- Make a tagged release on GitHub.
+  The tag target is the ``main`` branch.
+  If ``version`` is now "0.16.0", the release name is "pyxem 0.16.0".
+  The tag name is "v0.16.0".
+  The release body should contain a description of what has changed and a link to the
+  changelog.
+
+- Monitor the publish workflow to ensure the release is successfully uploaded to PyPI.
+  If the upload fails, the upload workflow can be re-run.
+
+Post-release action
+-------------------
+- Monitor the `documentation build <https://readthedocs.org/projects/pyxem/builds>`__
+  to ensure that the new stable documentation is successfully built from the release.
+
+- Ensure that `Zenodo <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2649351>`__ displays the new
+  release.
+
+- Make a new PR to ``main``, update ``version`` in ``pyxem/release_info.py`` and make
+  any updates to this guide if necessary.
+
+- Tidy up GitHub issues and close the corresponding milestone.
+
+- A PR to the conda-forge feedstock will be created by the conda-forge bot.
+  Follow the relevant instructions from the conda-forge documentation on updating
+  packages, as well as the instructions in the PR.
+  Merge after checks pass.
+  Monitor the Azure pipeline CI to ensure the release is successfully published to
+  conda-forge.