RELEASE.md

Release procedure

Off the main branch

Instructions for a new major, new minor, or a patch when this would make it the latest version (e.g. 2.2.1 when latest version is 2.2.0)

Ensure you have the latest changes locally, and no uncommitted changes:

git pull --ff-only
git status

Set the version locally:

export RELEASE_VERSION=2.2.0
export NEXT_VERSION=2.2.1-SNAPSHOT

Update the versions:

# Update version in pom
./mvnw versions:set -DgenerateBackupPoms=false -DnewVersion=$RELEASE_VERSION

Update the docs (docs/quickstart.md and mkdocs.yml) to point to the new release version:

# "-i.bak" works with both GNU and BSD (macOS) sed, unlike a bare "-i".

sed -i.bak \
  -e "s|<version>[^<]*</version>|<version>${RELEASE_VERSION}</version>|g" \
  -e "s|mcp-bom:[^\"]*\"|mcp-bom:${RELEASE_VERSION}\"|g" \
  docs/quickstart.md
rm docs/quickstart.md.bak

sed -i.bak "s|\(mcp-core/\)[0-9][^ ]*|\1${RELEASE_VERSION}|" mkdocs.yml
rm mkdocs.yml.bak

Commit everything and tag:

git add pom.xml mkdocs.yml docs/quickstart.md "**/pom.xml"
git commit --signoff --message "Release version $RELEASE_VERSION"
git tag --annotate "v$RELEASE_VERSION" --message "Release version $RELEASE_VERSION"

Review the commit and the tag (git show "v$RELEASE_VERSION"), then prepare the next version:

# Update version in pom
./mvnw versions:set -DgenerateBackupPoms=false -DnewVersion=$NEXT_VERSION

git add pom.xml "**/pom.xml"
git commit --signoff --message "Next development version"

Review the commit (git show).

⚠️ Take a good review before pushing!

Then push it all:

git push --tags origin HEAD

Then release from the "Release to Maven Central" action. Click "Run workflow", choose the newly pushed tag, then "run workflow".

Create release notes.