Sig-release: Create Visual Path To Release

[jeremyrickard]

During the last SIG-Release meeting, we discussed awareness of the release outside of the Release Team (i.e. contributors/kep authors/etc) and the need to better communicate this and provide refresher training to the community, as well as the need to better highlight things with the release team. One proposal was developing a "visual path" to a release, with all steps and things related documented.

This could be useful for:

• Onboarding for RT members
• Onboarding for general new contributors
• Re-onboarding of veterans who might assume what the processes are now but don’t have new info and context

This should include things like education about dates (enhancement freeze, code freeze, test freeze), phases of the release, and information about all artifacts generated (release notes, blogs, etc), so that everyone can be familiar with the what, when, and why. This could initially be picked up by the various shadows toward the end of 1.21 (or shadows from 1.20 could contribute what they learned in 1.20). Then, we could have on-going update. periodic updates each release, as things evolve, to ensure that visuals and text do not become stale.

Once developed, the release team can communicate this and evangelize this to various SIG meetings and during the monthly community meetings.

/sig release
/kind documentation
/area release-team
/priority important-soon
/cc @kubernetes/sig-release-leads
/milestone v1.21

[annajung]

@savitharaghunathan and I have been working on this as it's something that we brought up during 1.19 retro. We have a draft of the flow chart but weren't able to finish it due to other priorities. We will probably need to rethink the tool used so that the visual doesn't become stale.

Happy to work on this and would welcome anyone else who wants to work on it with us.

/assign @savitharaghunathan @annajung

[sladyn98]

@annajung I came across something that would help you convert a markdown file to a kind of flowchart. So you can maybe update that md which would generate the graph. Never tested it though. Do let me know what tools you are using and maybe I can chip in
https://support.typora.io/Draw-Diagrams-With-Markdown/

[fejta-bot]

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[saschagrunert]

@savitharaghunathan @annajung did you have a chance to work on this one recently?

[annajung]

There is something similar that was done by the @LappleApple and the enhancements subproject team. It doesn't go through the whole process, just till code freeze, but it's something we can reuse.

@savitharaghunathan also had some graphs that she was working on, so I'll let her chime in on that.

I think just having something high-level might be helpful and we can iterate on it as suggested, so I'll pick this up again and start working on it. Thanks, @sladyn98 for that tip! will look into that tool to see if it's something I can use to create a visual path

[annajung]

/remove-lifecycle stale

[annajung]

Hi all, I have an update!

I started working with a tool called mermaid to create a visual via code. Thank you again @sladyn98 for the recommendation. It's very simple to use and they provide a live editor where code can be pasted as well to modify the graph.

In addition, while working on this issue, I found it very difficult to have one visual that fits everyone's needs. It can become quite complex to look at when incorporating everything suggested. Therefore, I decided to divide up the visual into two

• A visual for the release team to help onboard new RT members focusing on how each sub teams work from the start of the release to the end of the release.
• A visual for the KEP author to help KEP authors (and anyone else outside of the release team interested in the process) understand their responsibility in relation to release team deadlines.

Please take a look and let me know if the graph represents the ask!