Release Checklist

Steps for making a release

Initial Steps

1. Make a developer call-out for PRs to merge. Merge and test.
2. Run "make ruff"
3. Run "pytest tests"

Prepare release branch

1. Create a release branch and create a pull request for it against main.
   • This is not strictly necessary, but I have found that during the pre-release testing process multiple small bugs are uncovered. Having an unprotected branch available to push changes to allows you to iterate more rapidly. Otherwise all individual changes will need to go through the PR review and testing process.
   • New If the branch starts with release/, as in release/4.0.0, then you can release the branch directly and it will be uploaded to PyPi. Otherwise, the branch must be merged into main and the release performed from a tag on that branch.
2. Edit the file invokeai/version/invokeai_version.py to bring the InvokeAI version up to the desired release number. I refer to https://peps.python.org/pep-0440/ for the accepted formats
3. Deactivate any active virtual environment (the next step will complain if you don't)
4. Run make installer-zip. This will build the frontend, build a wheel of the entire InvokeAI distribution, and then package the wheel into a .zip file with the installer script.
5. Test the zip file
   • Unzip it to a temporary directory
   • Run its install.sh script
   • Do basic checking that root directory is created, starter models are installed, and then web server starts up and can generate images.

Upload Release (candidate) to GitHub

3. When satisfied with the installer, tag this commit with make tag-release. Note that if there is already a tag with the same version number, this script will delete the old tag and create a new one on the current commit. These operations directly affect the GitHub repository, so be careful!
4. Go to the InvokeAI Releases Page and push the Draft New Release button.
5. You will be prompted to select or create a tag for the release. Select the one chosen in step (2).
6. Write the release notes. There is a GitHub button labeled Generate release notes that will automatically insert the changelog and new contributors. I use this to generate the bottom half of the release notes, and the tried and true method of cutting and pasting from the previous release notes to write the intro.
7. Upload the zip file created in step 4 into the Assets section of the release notes. I also like to upload them into the body of the release notes, since it can be hard for users to find the Assets section.
8. Start the PyPi release workflow in the Actions section of the InvokeAI repository. Double check the correct branch is being used to upload to PyPi.
9. Check the Set as a pre-release and _Create discussion item` checkboxes at the bottom of the release page, and Save.
10. Announce the pre-release in Discussion and Discord.

Revisions

When a change has been made to the release branch, bump up the version number in _version.py and repeat steps 4-9. Generally you only need to upload the new versions of the zip file and let the users know that a change has been made. Use the popup menu on the upper left of the release page to update the pre-release to the new version-patchlevel tag.

Iterate this process until you are ready to finalize the release.

Final Release from the Release Branch

If you named the branch release/<something> then you can release it directly:

1. Update the version number to what you want to see in the release.
2. Build the zip file as before
3. Tag the commit as before
4. Upload the release zip file to the release page.
5. Update the tag to use in the release page.
6. Change the "pre-release" checkbox to "latest release"
7. Push the green button.

Final Release from the Main Branch

Alternatively you can release from main (this was the traditional way of doing it).

Approve the release branch's PR and merge into main. Now, working in the main branch:

1. Run create_installer.sh to do the final tagging and zip file generation.
2. Merge to main (important!). This will move the tag to main as well.
3. Open the pre-release page in edit mode and upload the final zip files.
4. Choose the final tag from the popup menu.
5. Uncheck Set as pre-release and check Set as the latest release.
6. Save, and the release is done!

Publicity

1. Create a Discussion announcement
2. Announce on Discord and Reddit
3. Produce and release a YouTube video, if appropriate.

Post Release Step (new!)

1. On the main branch, bump up the version number to X.Y.Za1 to indicate that this is now an alpha release. If you don't do this, then people who try to update to main will not get the most recent version because of pip's version checking logic.