neovim/MAINTAIN.md
Justin M. Keyes f05a2891d3 build: rename build-related dirs
Problem:
Dirs "config", "packaging", and "third-party" are all closely related
but this is not obvious from the layout. This adds friction for new
contributors.

Solution:
- rename config/ to cmake.config/
- rename test/config/ to test/cmakeconfig/ because it is used in Lua
  tests: require('test.cmakeconfig.paths').
- rename packaging/ to cmake.packaging/
- rename third-party/ to cmake.deps/ (parallel with .deps/)
2022-06-28 04:02:29 -07:00

97 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown

Maintaining the Neovim project
==============================
Notes on maintaining the Neovim project.
General guidelines
------------------
* Decide by cost-benefit
* Write down what was decided
* Constraints are good
* Use automation to solve problems
* Never break the API... but sometimes break the UI
Ticket triage
-------------
In practice we haven't found a way to forecast more precisely than "next" and
"after next". So there are usually one or two (at most) planned milestones:
- Next bugfix-release (1.0.x)
- Next feature-release (1.x.0)
The forecasting problem might be solved with an explicit priority system (like
Bram's todo.txt). Meanwhile the Neovim priority system is defined by:
- PRs nearing completion.
- Issue labels. E.g. the `+plan` label increases the ticket's priority merely
for having a plan written down: it is _closer to completion_ than tickets
without a plan.
- Comment activity or new information.
Anything that isn't in the next milestone, and doesn't have a finished PR—is
just not something you care very much about, by construction. Post-release you
can review open issues, but chances are your next milestone is already getting
full... :)
Release policy
--------------
Release "often", but not "early".
The (unreleased) `master` branch is the "early" channel; it should not be
released if it's not stable. High-risk changes may be merged to `master` if
the next release is not imminent.
For maintenance releases, create a `release-x.y` branch. If the current release
has a major bug:
1. Fix the bug on `master`.
2. Cherry-pick the fix to `release-x.y`.
3. Cut a release from `release-x.y`.
- Run `./scripts/release.sh`
- Update (force-push) the remote `stable` tag.
- The [CI job](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/blob/3d45706478cd030c3ee05b4f336164bb96138095/.github/workflows/release.yml#L11-L13)
will update the release assets based on the `stable` tag.
The neovim repository includes a backport [github action](https://github.com/zeebe-io/backport-action).
In order to trigger the action, a PR must be labeled with a label matching the
form `backport release-0.X`. Note, the PR must have a description in the issue body,
or the backport will fail.
Third-party dependencies
--------------
These "bundled" dependencies can be updated by bumping their versions in `cmake.deps/CMakeLists.txt`:
- [Lua](https://www.lua.org/download.html)
- [LuaJIT](https://github.com/LuaJIT/LuaJIT)
- [Luv](https://github.com/luvit/luv)
- [libtermkey](https://github.com/neovim/libtermkey)
- [libuv](https://github.com/libuv/libuv)
- [libvterm](http://www.leonerd.org.uk/code/libvterm/)
- [lua-compat](https://github.com/keplerproject/lua-compat-5.3)
- [tree-sitter](https://github.com/tree-sitter/tree-sitter)
`scripts/bump-dep.sh` is a script that can automate this process for `LuaJIT`, `Luv`, `libuv` & `tree-sitter`. See usage guide:
- Run `./scripts/bump-deps.sh --dep Luv --version 1.43.0-0` to update a dependency.
See `./scripts/bump-deps.sh -h` for more detailed usage
- Run `./scripts/bump-deps.sh --pr` to create a pr
To generate the default PR title and body, the script uses the most recent commit (not in `master`) with prefix `build(deps): `
These dependencies are "vendored" (inlined), we need to update the sources manually:
- [libmpack](https://github.com/libmpack/libmpack)
- [xdiff](https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/xdiff)
- [lua-cjson](https://github.com/openresty/lua-cjson)
- [Klib](https://github.com/attractivechaos/klib)
- [inspect.lua](https://github.com/kikito/inspect.lua)
We also maintain some forks, particularly for Windows, if we are waiting on upstream changes:
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Deps
See also
--------
- https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/862
- https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/howto/maintain-git.txt