react-native/Releases.md

The list of releases with notes can be found at: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/releases

Future releases:

• 0.17 branch cut, 0.17.0-rc - beginning of week of Dec 7
• 0.17.0 - Dec 17
• (Holiday break)
• 0.18 branch cut, 0.18.0-rc - beginning of week of Jan 4
• 0.18.0 - Jan 14
• 0.19 branch cut, 0.19.0-rc - beginning of week of Jan 18
• 0.19.0 - Jan 28
• ...

Ideas for improvements

• A lot of these steps could be done by a script
• We could simplify the process quite a bit by publishing the Android binaries to npm. This will increase the size of the npm package by about 3.3MB. To do that: after installArchives, move the binaries to somewhere where npm publish will pick them up. Then, change the build.gradle file(s) of your generated app so that Gradle will pick up the binaries from node_modules. This might also fix issues with incompatible versions of JS and Android binaries (e.g. #4488).

Cut a release branch

Note: Make sure you replace 0.18 in all the commands below with the version you're releasing :) For example, copy-paste all of this into an editor and replace 0.18.

Check that everything works

First, set up Sinopia (only need to do this once): https://github.com/facebook/react-native/tree/master/react-native-cli

Make absolutely sure basic iOS and Android workflow works on master:

• cd react-native
• git pull
• git checkout -b 0.18-stable
• Edit ReactAndroid/gradle.properties, set VERSION_NAME=0.18.0
• Edit ReactAndroid/release.gradle, uncomment Javadoc generation (the line // archives androidJavadocJar)
• Make sure java -version prints 1.7.x, this is currently needed for Javadoc generation and Javadocs are required by Maven Central (we should make it work with Java 8)
• Run ./gradlew :ReactAndroid:installArchives, it will print a lot of Javadoc warnings, that's OK.
• Check the artifacts were generated: ls -al ~/.m2/repository/com/facebook/react/react-native/0.18.0/ should contain:
  • react-native-0.18.0-javadoc.jar, react-native-0.18.0-sources.jar, react-native-0.18.0.aar, react-native-0.18.0.pom
  • For each of the above also .asc file
• In package.json, set version to e.g. 0.18.0-rc.
• In React.podspec, set version to e.g. 0.18.0-rc.
• In local-cli/generator-android/templates/src/app/build.gradle update the dependency to e.g. com.facebook.react:react-native:0.18.+
• Publish to sinopia:
  • npm set registry http://localhost:4873/, check that it worked: npm config list will show registry is set to localhost
  • In a separate shell, start sinopia. Run sinopia. If started successfully it will print: http address - http://localhost:4873/.
  • Make sure http://localhost:4873/ shows no old versions
  • npm publish
  • http://localhost:4873/ will show 0.18.0-rc
• Test that everything works:
  • cd /tmp
  • react-native init Zero12rc
  • cd Zero12rc
  • Check that package.json, android/app/build.gradle have correct versions (^0.18.0-rc, com.facebook.react:react-native:0.18.+)
  • open ios/Zero12rc.xcodeproj
  • Hit the Run button in Xcode.
  • Packager should open in a new window, you should see the Welcome to React Native screen, Reload JS, try Chrome debugging - put a breakpoint somewhere in index.ios.js and Reload JS, Chrome debugger should stop on the breakpoint (we don't have tests for Chrome debugging)
  • Close the packager window, close Xcode
  • Start an Android emulator (ideally Genymotion, it's faster and more reliable than Google emulators)
  • react-native run-android
  • Test is the same way as on iOS, including Chrome debugging

Push to github

• Revert the Javadoc change in ReactAndroid/release.gradle
• git commit -am "[0.18-rc] Bump version numbers"
• git push origin 0.18-stable

Do a release

Publish to Maven Central (Note: We could get rid of this whole section by publishing binaries to npm instead):

• Log into Sonatype and go to Staging upload. You'll need to get permissions for this by filing a ticket explaining you're a core contributor to React Native. Example ticket.
• Select Artifact(s) with a POM (to publish to a local Maven repo for testing run ./gradlew :ReactAndroid:installArchives)
• Add all files: .aar, sources jar, javadoc jar, .asc for everything (including the POM file)
• Wait a few hours until you see the version has propagated to JCenter

To release 0.18-rc to npm:

(You need to be a maintainer of the repo. For admins, here's the command to promote someone)

npm owner add <user> react-native

git tag v0.18.0-rc 0.18-stable # don't forget the `v` at the beginning!
git push --tags

• Publish to npm

npm publish
# Only when doing a non-rc release:
npm dist-tag add react-native@0.18.0 latest

• Upgrade tags to a release by going to https://github.com/facebook/react-native/tags
• Click "Add Notes to release"
• Click Publish