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Purpose: For maintainers, shows how to create and publish releases of openCenter-cli.

Prerequisites

Before creating a release, you need:

  • Maintainer access to the repository

  • Git configured with commit signing

  • GitHub CLI (gh) installed (optional but recommended)

  • All tests passing on main branch

Release Types

Semantic Versioning

openCenter-cli follows Semantic Versioning:

  • Major (v2.0.0) - Breaking changes

  • Minor (v1.1.0) - New features, backward compatible

  • Patch (v1.0.1) - Bug fixes, backward compatible

  • Pre-release (v1.0.0-rc1) - Release candidates

Release Cadence

  • Major releases - As needed for breaking changes

  • Minor releases - Monthly or when features are ready

  • Patch releases - As needed for critical bugs

  • Pre-releases - Before major/minor releases for testing

Step 1: Prepare Release

Update CHANGELOG.md

Move unreleased changes to new version section:

## [1.2.0] - 2026-02-17

### Added
- AWS provider support with EC2 provisioning
- Multi-cluster management commands
- Shell integration for active cluster display

### Changed
- Improved validation error messages
- Updated default Kubernetes version to 1.33.5

### Fixed
- VRRP validation logic for OpenStack
- Template rendering for VMware provider

### Security
- Updated dependencies with security patches

## [Unreleased]

### Added
- (empty for next release)

Update Version Documentation

Update version references in:

  • README.md - Installation instructions

  • docs/getting-started/getting-started.md - Version examples

  • docs/reference/default-values.md - Default versions

Run Full Test Suite

# Build
mise run build

# Run all tests
mise run test
mise run godog

# Schema verification
mise run schema-verify

# Security tests
mise run test-security

# Integration tests
mise run test-integration

All tests must pass before proceeding.

Step 2: Push The Release Tag

The GitHub Actions release workflow is the source of truth for published artifacts. Pushing the tag also runs the container image workflow, which publishes the multi-architecture CLI image to ghcr.io/opencenter-cloud/opencenter-cli.

git tag -a v1.2.0 -m "Release 1.2.0"
git push origin v1.2.0

The tag-triggered workflow builds the supported Linux and macOS binaries, generates checksums.txt, signs the release assets with cosign keyless signing, emits an SBOM, and creates the GitHub release automatically.

Step 3: Watch The Release Workflow

Use GitHub Actions or the GitHub CLI to monitor the run:

gh run list --workflow release.yml
gh run watch

Step 4: Verify Release

Review Generated Assets

Verify the GitHub release contains:

  • the four platform binaries

  • checksums.txt

  • cosign signature and certificate files

  • opencenter.spdx.json

Verify the GitHub Container Registry package contains:

  • ghcr.io/opencenter-cloud/opencenter-cli:1.2.0

  • ghcr.io/opencenter-cloud/opencenter-cli:1.2

  • the corresponding sha-* tag

Local Dry Run Helper

mise run release <version> remains available for local preflight builds and manual artifact inspection, but it is no longer the publishing mechanism for official releases.

Step 5: Verify Release

Download and Test

# Download binary
curl -L https://github.com/opencenter-cloud/openCenter-cli/releases/download/v1.2.0/opencenter-1.2.0-linux-amd64 -o opencenter

# Make executable
chmod +x opencenter

# Test
./opencenter version
./opencenter cluster init test --org test-org

Check Release Page

Verify on GitHub:

  • Release appears in releases list

  • All binaries are attached

  • Release notes are correct

  • Installation instructions work

Step 6: Announce Release

Update Documentation

Update installation instructions:

## Installation

Download the latest release:

**Linux (x86_64)**
```bash
curl -L https://github.com/opencenter-cloud/openCenter-cli/releases/download/v1.2.0/opencenter-1.2.0-linux-amd64 -o opencenter
chmod +x opencenter
sudo mv opencenter /usr/local/bin/

macOS (Apple Silicon)

curl -L https://github.com/opencenter-cloud/openCenter-cli/releases/download/v1.2.0/opencenter-1.2.0-darwin-arm64 -o opencenter
chmod +x opencenter
sudo mv opencenter /usr/local/bin/
### Announce Release

Announce in:
- GitHub Discussions
- Team Slack/chat
- Project mailing list
- Release notes blog post (if applicable)

## Release Checklist

Before releasing, verify:

- [ ] All tests pass (`mise run test && mise run godog`)
- [ ] CHANGELOG.md updated with release notes
- [ ] Version documentation updated
- [ ] Release binaries built (`mise run release v1.2.0`)
- [ ] Release notes generated (`mise run publish 1.2.0`)
- [ ] Binaries tested on target platforms
- [ ] Git tag created and pushed
- [ ] GitHub release created with binaries
- [ ] GHCR image published for the release tag
- [ ] Release verified by downloading and testing
- [ ] Documentation updated with new version
- [ ] Release announced to team

## Hotfix Releases

For critical bugs in production:

1. Create hotfix branch from release tag:
   ```bash
   git checkout -b hotfix/1.2.1 v1.2.0

  1. Fix bug and commit:

       ```bash
   git commit -m "fix: critical bug in validation"
   ```
. Update CHANGELOG.md:
    ```markdown
## [1.2.1] - 2026-02-18
       ### Fixed
   - Critical bug in validation logic
   ```
. Build and release:
       ```bash
   mise run release v1.2.1
   mise run publish 1.2.1
   git tag -a v1.2.1 -m "Hotfix 1.2.1"
   git push origin v1.2.1
   gh release create v1.2.1 --notes-file bin/release/RELEASE_NOTES_1.2.1.md bin/release/opencenter-*
   ```
. Merge hotfix back to main:
    ```bash
git checkout main
git merge hotfix/1.2.1
git push origin main
```

Pre-Release Testing

Before major/minor releases, create release candidate:

# Build RC
mise run release v1.2.0-rc1

# Create pre-release
gh release create v1.2.0-rc1 \
  --prerelease \
  --notes "Release candidate for 1.2.0. Please test and report issues." \
  bin/release/opencenter-*

Test for 1-2 weeks before final release.

Rollback

If a release has critical issues:

  1. Mark release as pre-release on GitHub

  2. Add warning to release notes

  3. Create hotfix release

  4. Update documentation to point to previous stable version

Common Issues

Build fails with version mismatch

Problem: go.mod version doesn’t match build

Solution:

# Update go.mod
go mod tidy

# Rebuild
mise run build

Tag already exists

Problem: Git tag already exists

Solution:

# Delete local tag
git tag -d v1.2.0

# Delete remote tag
git push origin :refs/tags/v1.2.0

# Recreate tag
git tag -a v1.2.0 -m "Release 1.2.0"
git push origin v1.2.0

Release notes missing commits

Problem: Some commits not in release notes

Solution:

# Manually generate changelog
git log v1.1.0..v1.2.0 --oneline --no-merges

# Edit release notes
vim bin/release/RELEASE_NOTES_1.2.0.md

Binary doesn’t run on target platform

Problem: Binary fails with "exec format error"

Solution:

# Verify GOOS/GOARCH
file bin/release/opencenter-1.2.0-linux-amd64

# Rebuild with correct platform
GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o bin/release/opencenter-1.2.0-linux-amd64

Evidence

This documentation is based on the following repository files:

  • Release task: .mise.toml:127-223 (release task)

  • Publish task: .mise.toml:225-326 (publish task)

  • Version injection: .mise.toml:23-47 (build task with ldflags)

  • Version management: .kiro/steering/tech.md:143-149

  • Build system: .mise.toml:1-961

  • Contributing guide: CONTRIBUTING.md:1-82