docs: Release guidelines (#57)

* docs: Release guidelines * docs: Improve wording in releasing docs * docs: Improve releasing docs further * release-docs: added info about snapshot PR --------- Co-authored-by: Nicklas Lundin <[email protected]>
spotify · Oct 2, 2023 · 579793a · 579793a
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diff --git a/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md b/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -27,3 +27,14 @@ Maven is configured to sign the generated artifacts using GPG. This is a securit
 
 Signing passphrases are securely stored in Github's CI, but the signing operation is not needed when developing locally and can always
 be skipped via the argument `-Dgpg.skip`
+
+### Releasing
+Github Actions are set up that are able to:
+- Create automated PRs to manage new Github tags/releases
+- Manage versioning automatically (including the `pom.xml` file)
+- Upload the generated artifacts to Maven Central **Staging**
+
+In order to promote an uploaded version from **Staging** to **Release** (hence making it openly available on [Maven Central Search](https://central.sonatype.com/)) a user with the right credentials must login into the the [Sonatype UI](https://oss.sonatype.org/#welcome) and perform the release process manually.
+
+#### After realeasing
+After a release PR is merged, the main branch will stay at the release version (non-snapshot) until updated. Release please will create a PR ([example](https://github.com/spotify/confidence-openfeature-provider-java/pull/55)) that does this "snapshot bump". The recommendation is to merge that PR directly when possible.