Notes for maintainers

docs/14.contribution.md

@@ -86,7 +86,17 @@ We use several tools to enforce codestyle and code quality: `black` for autoform
 ### Releases
 
 - Release versions MUST conform to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/). Releases that introduce breaking changes MUST be major ones.
-- Only the latest major version is supported in general. Critical fixes MAY be backported to the previous major release. To do so, create an `aux/X.Y.Z` branch from the latest stable tag, bump the DipDup version manually, and add a new tag.
+- Only the latest major version is supported in general. Important fixes SHOULD be backported to the previous major release (currently, 6.5)
+
+Releasing a new version currently requires some manual actions:
+
+1. Ensure that all GH issues and PRs are closed and linked to the milestone.
+2. Checkout to `aux/X.Y.Z` branch from `next` (or `master` for 6.5). Update DipDup version in `pyproject.toml`.
+3. Run `pdm run update` to lock dependencies and dump `requirements.txt` files.
+4. Run `pdm run demos` to generate demo projects from scratch.
+5. Commit and push all changes with msg like `Bump version X.Y.Z`. Open a PR, and link it to the milestone.
+6. Now you may want to switch Docker images of demos we host to `aux-X.Y.Z` tag as a smoke test.
+7. Merge the PR, then `git tag X.Y.Z && git push origin X.Y.Z`. Wait for `release.yml` and `docs.yml` pipelines to finish.
 
 ### 6.5 branch