Thanks for summarizing. For (1), I will send out this Google doc <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NdSOFO-PiY1hmwrRzbl16HkQYXRkcGWBVL3PllN20xM/edit> around the time of the next release where we can crowdsource ways to test the RC. I think it'd be valuable to approach a guide like this to be organized from a Beam user's perspective, meaning headers such as " If your workflow utilizes the Python SDK, change X to test with the newest RC".
As Danny mentioned, we can update our release guidelines after we have the info, but I think it could also make for a nice blog post to get more traction :) As per (2) I likely won't have time to commit by the next release as well. Happy to take a look though after the next release. Thanks, Svetak Sundhar Data Engineer s <nellywil...@google.com>vetaksund...@google.com On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 10:26 AM Danny McCormick via dev < dev@beam.apache.org> wrote: > So to summarize, I think there's broad consensus (or at least lazy > consensus) around the following: > > - (1) Updating our release email/guidelines to be more specific about what > we mean by release validation/how to be helpful during this process. This > includes both encouraging validation within each user's own code base and > encouraging people to document/share their process of validation and link > it in the release spreadsheet. > - (2) Doing something like what Airflow does (#29424 > <https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/29424>) and creating an issue > asking people who have contributed to the current release to help validate > their changes. > > I'm also +1 on doing both of these. The first bit (updating our > guidelines) is relatively easy - it should just require updating > https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/master/contributor-docs/release-guide.md#vote-and-validate-the-release-candidate > . > > I took a look at the second piece (copying what Airflow does) to see if we > could just copy their automation, but it looks like it's tied to airflow > breeze > <https://github.com/apache/airflow/blob/main/dev/breeze/src/airflow_breeze/provider_issue_TEMPLATE.md.jinja2> > (their repo-specific automation tooling), so we'd probably need to build > the automation ourselves. It shouldn't be terrible, basically we'd want a > GitHub Action that compares the current release tag with the last release > tag, grabs all the commits in between, parses them to get the author, and > creates an issue with that data, but it does represent more effort than > just updating a markdown file. There might even be an existing Action that > can help with this, I haven't looked too hard. > > As our next release manager, I'm happy to review PRs for either of these > if anyone wants to volunteer to help out. If not, I'm happy to update the > guidelines, but I probably won't have time to add the commit inspection > tooling (I'm planning on throwing any extra time towards continuing to > automate release candidate creation which is currently a more impactful > problem IMO). I would very much like it if both of these things happened > though :) > > Thanks, > Danny > > On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 10:05 AM XQ Hu <x...@google.com> wrote: > >> +1. This is a great idea to try. @Danny McCormick >> <dannymccorm...@google.com> FYI as our next release manager. >> >> On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 2:30 PM Johanna Öjeling via dev < >> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote: >> >>> When I have contributed to Apache Airflow, they have tagged all >>> contributors concerned in a GitHub issue when the RC is available and asked >>> us to validate it. Example: #29424 >>> <https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/29424>. >>> >>> I found that to be an effective way to notify contributors of the RC and >>> nudge them to help out. In the issue description there is a reference to >>> the guidelines on how to test the RC and a note that people are encouraged >>> to vote on the mailing list (which could admittedly be more highlighted >>> because I did not pay attention to it until now and was unaware that >>> contributors had a vote). >>> >>> It might be an idea to consider something similar here to increase the >>> participation? >>> >>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 7:01 PM Jack McCluskey via dev < >>> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I'm +1 on helping explain what we mean by "validate the RC" since we're >>>> really just asking users to see if their existing use cases work along with >>>> our typical slate of tests. I don't know if offloading that work to our >>>> active validators is the right approach though, documentation/screen share >>>> of their specific workflow is definitely less useful than having a more >>>> general outline of how to install the RC and things to look out for when >>>> testing. >>>> >>>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 12:55 PM Austin Bennett <aus...@apache.org> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Great effort. I'm also interested in streamlining releases -- so if >>>>> there are alot of manual tests that could be automated, would be great >>>>> to discover and then look to address. >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 8:47 AM Robert Bradshaw via dev < >>>>> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> +1 >>>>>> >>>>>> I would also strongly suggest that people try out the release against >>>>>> their own codebases. This has the benefit of ensuring the release won't >>>>>> break your own code when they go out, and stress-tests the new code >>>>>> against >>>>>> real-world pipelines. (Ideally our own tests are all passing, and this >>>>>> validation is automated as much as possible (though ensuring it matches >>>>>> our >>>>>> documentation and works in a clean environment still has value), but >>>>>> there's a lot of code and uses out there that we don't have access to >>>>>> during normal Beam development.) >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 8:21 AM Svetak Sundhar via dev < >>>>>> dev@beam.apache.org> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Hi all, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I’ve participated in RC testing for a few releases and have observed >>>>>>> a bit of a knowledge gap in how releases can be tested. Given that Beam >>>>>>> encourages contributors to vote on RC’s regardless of tenure, and that >>>>>>> voting on an RC is a relatively low-effort, high leverage way to >>>>>>> influence >>>>>>> the release of the library, I propose the following: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> During the vote for the next release, voters can document the >>>>>>> process they followed on a separate document, and add the link on >>>>>>> column G >>>>>>> here >>>>>>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qk-N5vjXvbcEk68GjbkSZTR8AGqyNUM-oLFo_ZXBpJw/edit#gid=437054928>. >>>>>>> One step further, could be a screencast of running the test, and >>>>>>> attaching >>>>>>> a link of that. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> We can keep repeating this through releases until we have >>>>>>> documentation for many of the different tests. We can then add these >>>>>>> docs >>>>>>> into the repo. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I’m proposing this because I’ve gathered the following feedback from >>>>>>> colleagues that are tangentially involved with Beam: They are >>>>>>> interested in >>>>>>> participating in release validation, but don’t know how to get started. >>>>>>> Happy to hear other suggestions too, if there are any to address the >>>>>>> above. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Svetak Sundhar >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Data Engineer >>>>>>> s <nellywil...@google.com>vetaksund...@google.com >>>>>>> >>>>>>>