Here are the steps to follow to create a new notmuch release.

These steps assume that a process (not described here) has already
been followed to determine the features and bug fixes to be included
in a release, and that adequate testing by the community has already
been performed. The little bit of testing performed here is a safety
check, and not a substitute for wider testing.

OK, so the code to be released is present and committed to your git
repository. From here, there are just a few steps to release:

1) Verify that the NEWS file is up to date.

	Read through the entry at the top of the NEWS file and see if
	you are aware of any major features recently added that are
	not mentioned there. If so, pleas add them, (and ask the
	authors of the commits to update NEWS in the future).

2) Increment the libnotmuch library version in lib/Makefile.local

	See the instructions there for how to increment it. The
	command below can be useful for inspecting header-file changes
	since the last release X.Y.Z:

		git diff X.Y.Z..HEAD -- lib/notmuch.h

	Note: We currently don't plan to increment
	LIBNOTMUCH_VERSION_MAJOR beyond 1, so if there *are*
	incompatible changes to the library interface, then
	stop. Don't release. Figure out the plan on the notmuch
	mailing list.

	Commit this change.

3) Run "make VERSION=X.Y release" which will perform the following steps:

   For the X.Y version, we'll generally just increment Y. But for
   major milestones of usability we're increment X as well.

	* Compile the current notmuch code (aborting release if it fails)
	* Run the notmuch test suite (aborting release if it fails)
	* Check that the notmuch version consists of only two components
	* Check that no release exists with the current version
	* Verify that "make dist" completes successfully
	* Generate the final tar file
	* Generate an sha1sum file
	* Sign the sha1sum using your GPG setup (asks for your GPG password)
	* scp the three files to appear on http://notmuchmail.org/releases
	* Place local copies of the three files in the releases directory
	* Create a LATEST-notmuch-version file (after deleting any old one)
	* Tag the entire source tree with a tag of the form X.Y.Z, and sign
	  the tag with your GPG key (asks for your GPG password, and you
	  may need to set GIT_COMMITTER_NAME and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL to match
	  your public-key's setting or this fails.)
	* Push that tag
	* Provide some text for the release announcement (see below).

4) Send a message to notmuch@notmuchmail.org to announce the release.

	Use the text provided from "make release" above, (if for some
	reason you lose this message, "make release-message" prints
	it again for you.