1. AWS Internal - Accelerator Release Process

1.1. Creating a new Accelerator Code Release

1. Ensure main branch is in a suitable state
2. Disable branch protection for both the main branch and for the release/ branches

3. Create a version branch with SemVer semantics and a release/ prefix: e.g. release/v1.0.5 or release/v1.0.5-b using github UI or using the commands below

   • On latest main, run: git checkout -b release/vX.Y.Z
   • Important: Certain git operations are ambiguous if tags and branches have the same name. Using the release/ prefix reserves the actual version name for the tag itself; i.e. every release/vX.Y.Z branch will have a corresponding vX.Y.Z tag.
   • Push that branch to GitHub (if created locally)
     • git push origin release/vX.Y.Z

4. The release workflow will run, and create a DRAFT release if successful with all commits since the last tagged release.

5. Prune the commits that have been added to the release notes (e.g. remove any low-information commits)
6. Publish the release - this creates the git tag in the repo and marks the release as latest. It also bumps the version key in several project package.json files.

7. Re-enable branch protection for both the main branch and for the release/ branches

   • Note: The Publish operation will run the following GitHub Action, which merges the release/vX.Y.Z branch to main. Branch Protection in GitHub will cause this to fail, and why we are momentarily disabling branch protection.

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