Katello 4.20 branching process

[Zhunting]

This procedure was generated from procedures/katello/branch.md.erb at 7a1fd2aa8020026ecbe6dc50f23e0fc3676b9155

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Roles

• Release Owner: @Zhunting

Four Weeks Prior to Branch Date: 2026-01-13 to 2026-01-17

Release Owner

• Start attending upstream release sync meetings and giving updates
• Announce upcoming branching to Discourse development category a month before
• Update Katello Transifex translations:
  • Create a Transifex account and join the Foreman team
  • Spin up a Foreman and Katello installation
  • Install the Transifex cli client. Only the first curl command is necessary.
  • Install grunt-cli
  • grunt i18n:extract in the katello/engines/bastion_katello directory
  • make -C locale tx-pull in the katello directory
  • grunt i18n:compile in the katello/engines/bastion_katello directory
  • bundle exec rake plugin:gettext[katello] in the foreman directory
  • bundle exec rake plugin:po_to_json[katello] in the foreman directory
  • make -C locale mo-files in the katello directory
  • Add any uncommitted translation files and open a PR to Katello (no Redmine issue needed)

Three Weeks Prior to Branch Date: 2026-01-20 to 2026-01-24

Release Owner

• Ensure that issues requiring installer changes are merged

Prep week: 2026-01-27 to 2026-01-31

Release Owner

• Commit the settings file to the theforeman-rel-eng repository. See an example here
• Add tool_belt config for new release:
  • Create a new yaml file using the nightly Katello config as a template: tool_belt configs
  • Manually update the following sections:
    • releases: update to current release. Move the previous ‘current’ release to prior_releases below.
    • prior_releases: Remove the oldest prior_release (check with that release owner first to see if there’s a reason it should stay)
    • repos: Update branch names to current versions, including any new releases that need to happen
    • ignores: Delete all items from this list and start fresh (this will be used for cherry-picks later)
    • tags: update Katello version number in all values. Check the nightly config to see if any tags/repos need to be updated
  • Open a PR to tool_belt with the new config file
• Coordinate with installer maintainers that expected changes are completed.
  • candlepin
  • pulpcore
  • foreman_proxy_content
  • katello
• Review the Foreman schedule and planning (example) and note the date of the first scheduled release candidate.

Branching: 2026-02-10

Release Owner

• Create the KATELLO-4.20 branch using branch_project
• Push the KATELLO-4.20 branch using branch_push
• Bump versions to 4.21-master using develop_branch_bump
• Push version bumps to 4.21-master using develop_branch_push
• Bump Katello related packages to their next versions
  • packaging
  • Update the katello-repos pulpcore_version to the latest branched version available in pulpcore-packaging: Example from Katello 4.17
• Set GitHub Actions to use the new branch: sed -i '/foreman_version/ s/develop/-stable/' .github/workflows/*.yml
• Set Packit to use the new branch: sed -i 's/develop//; /theforeman.org.katello/ s/nightly/4.20/; /theforeman.org/ s/nightly//' .packit.yaml
• Generate and post the release procedure, if not already posted:
  • Use procedure_release: PROJECT=katello VERSION=4.20 ./procedure_release "2026-02-10" "@Zhunting" "@Zhunting"
  • Post the output in Development/Releases using Katello 4.20.0-rc1 release process
  • Clone GitHub - theforeman/apidocs: API documentation for Foreman and its plugins and follow the Katello README section to update the API documentation.
• Prepare “Katello Next” and future redmine versions
  • Rename the “Katello Next” release to Katello 4.21.0
  • Recreate the “Katello Next” release and indicate that it is a placeholder for issues belonging to the next version of Katello
  • Create the “Katello 4.20.1 TODO” custom query using the last one as a template