Support release process with tooling

[sagikazarmark]

There are already several steps involved in creating a new release.

Let's automate some of the steps to make sure we don't forget any of it:

• Create an issue titled "Release vX.Y.Z"
• Assign the issue to a release manager
• Create a checklist for pre-, during and post- release steps
  • Pre-release: documentation updated, all issues/PRs in a milestone are closed/merged, version matrix updated, etc
  • During release: document the exact steps and commands (templated) to do/run
  • Post-release: ...
• Support different modes
  • Minor release
  • Patch release (create release branch from minor release, ask release manager to link release issue to backport PRs, etc)

Automation ideas:

• Run a github action with the version and create issues/branches from there
  • Pros:
    • Works regardless of access level
  • Cons:
    • Harder to test
    • If something goes wrong, harder to remediate
• Run a bash script locally using gh CLI
  • Pros:
    • Probably easier to write
  • Cons:
    • Bash
• Write a specialized tool (eg. in Go)
  • Pros:
    • Easier to detect and remediate issues
  • Cons:
    • Takes more time to write (probably)

[github-actions]

Thank you for your contribution! This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has no recent activity in the last 60 days. It will be closed in 20 days, if no further activity occurs. If this issue is still relevant, please leave a comment to let us know, and the stale label will be automatically removed.

[Elyytscha]

as I noticed BV also likes conventional commits, i can recommend https://github.com/googleapis/release-please for release automation