Triage and check for pending tickets and PRs to merge

Start drafting changelog, feature documentation, and marketing materials

Review and update project dependencies as needed

QA prepares release testing assignments

Merge database upgrade

Cut a Release Candidate (RC-1)

QA runs smoke tests on the pre-release build

QA runs automated load tests and upgrade tests on the pre-release build

Triage and merge regression bug fixes

QA final approves the release

Cut the final release build and publish

Deploy changelog, upgrade notes, and feature documentation

Confirm minimum server requirements are updated in documentation

Update release download links in relevant docs and webpages

Publish announcements and marketing

Schedule a release retrospective

Add dates for the next release to the release calendar and communicate to stakeholders

Compose release metrics

Prepare security update communications

Archive the incident channel and create a new one for the next release