Release notes

Created by Raphael 'kena' Poss
Last updated: Oct 21, 2021 by Jesse Seldess

We publish detailed release notes describing most non-test changes. The Docs team uses this script to automatically generate release notes from "Release note" texts in cockroach PRs. This page provides guidance on when and how Cockroach Labs engineers should write these texts.

When to write release note texts

Write release note texts for changes that impacts external users, for example:

  • Changes to how users interact with or experience the product

    • Examples: New/changed functionality, backward-incompatible changes, build dependencies, UI changes

  • Changes to how the product behaves

    • Examples: Performance changes, command response changes (that aren't backward-incompatible), architecture changes

Do NOT write release note texts for internal changes, such as:

  • Functionality that is not accessible to or intended for external users (e.g., multi-tenant capabilities)

  • Code refactors

  • Testing/infrastructure work

How to write release note texts

High-level rules

  • Every PR should have at least one “Release note” text.

    • If a PR is missing a "Release note" text, the script will put it in a "Changes without release note annotation" section, and the Docs team will have to investigate. This can be time-consuming.  

  • Ensure “Release note” texts are in commit messages and optionally in PR descriptions.

    • If they are only in PR descriptions, they may not get picked up.

    • If a commit covers multiple user-visible changes in different areas (e.g., a bug fix and a performance improvement), write multiple, distinct release note texts.

  • Put "Release note" texts at the end of commits.

    • Everything after the "Release note" annotation gets picked up by the script.

Format

  • To include a release note texts in our published release notes, use: "Release note (<single category>): <description>".

    • For guidance on choosing the right category, see "Release note categories" below.

    • For guidance on writing a good description, see "Release note descriptions" below. 

  • To exclude a release note text from our published release notes, use:  "Release note: None".

Categories

In your release note texts, try to use the following categories verbatim to make sure your notes get placed in the right section of the generated release notes. The script tries to catch spelling mistakes and alternate categories that we have seen multiple times, but if it can't find a matching category, the note will be placed in a "Miscellaneous" section and the Docs team will have to investigate. 

When a commit falls into more than one category, choose the category that makes the most sense from a user perspective. 

These categories are very imperfect and will evolve over the course of this next release cycle. 



Category

Valid alternate

Focus

Category

Valid alternate

Focus

enterprise change

enterprise

Changes to CockroachDB features requiring an enterprise license, e.g., BACKUP/RESTORE.

ops change

operational change

Changes to cockroach commands that affect primarily operators tasked with setting up and maintaining production clusters.

This includes changes to logging configurations and behavior, environment variables, integrations with service managers, CLI flags for server commands, exit codes, etc.

cli change

cli

Changes to cockroach commands that affect primarily application developers, CockroachDB developers and contributors, and operators running experiments or small-scale testing/staging clusters.

This includes changes to the SQL shells, userfile, workload,  debug commands that operate on non-running servers, etc.

sql change

sql

Changes to SQL statements, functions/operators, or execution.

api change

api

Changes to APIs, including classification and versioning.

ui change

ui

Changes to the DB Console or any associated endpoints.

security update

security

security change

Changes that impacts the use of security features (IAM, TLS, etc.) or the security profile of the product. 

performance improvement

performance

performance change

Changes that improve performance, often at kv, storage, and SQL engine levels.

bug fix

bugfix

Changes that fix known problems as opposed to add or improve functionality.

general change

general

core change

Changes that don't fit anywhere else. Only use this if you have no other good option. This might include changes to logs and user-facing configs for Kubernetes, Prometheus, Alertmanager, etc. We probably need new, meaningful categories. 

build change



Changes to requirements for building CockroachDB from source.

backward-incompatible change

backwards-incompatible change

Changes that can break programmatic usage of an interface. This will be defined more clearly soon because not all interfaces are programmable, but examples are when an interface is remove, stops accepting a certain syntax or values, or has a new default value. See past examples.

This list is also documented in the commit message template, which lives in githooks/prepare-commit-msg.

Descriptions

The release note description (the part after the colon) is obviously the most important part. Here are some best practices:

  • Default to more information than less.

    • A thin/unclear release note text causes Docs writers to have to read the full PR description anyway.

  • Explain what changed, how it changed, and why it's relevant to users. 

    • For bug fixes, describing the cause and symptoms of the bug and since when the bug existed. 

  • Use past tense (e.g., "Added the xxx statement...", "Fixed a bug...") or present tense ("CockroachDB now supports...", "It is now possible to...").

  • Note if the change is part of progress toward a broader feature on the roadmap.

    • This is new guidance! But it will tremendously help the Docs team correlate granular changes to larger feature work. 

Examples

Enterprise change

Rating

Text

Why

Rating

Text

Why

Bad

Release note (ccl): Default interval for the closed timestamp cluster setting is different. 

  • Category is not valid.

  • Description does not use requested format.

  • We know a default changed but not the name of the exact cluster setting, how it changed, and why it is relevant to users. 

Better

Release note (enterprise change): Shortened the default interval for the kv.closed_timestamp.target_duration cluster setting from 30s to 3s.

  • Category is valid.

  • Description uses requested format.

  • We know what changed, how it changed (shortened from 30s to 3s), but not why it is relevant.

Best

Release note (enterprise change): Shortened the default interval for the kv.closed_timestamp.target_duration cluster setting from 30s to 3s. This allows follower reads at 4.8 seconds in the past, a much shorter window than the previous 48 seconds.

  • Category is valid.

  • Description uses requested format.

  • We know what changed, how it changed (shortened from 30s to 3s), and why it is relevant to users (less stale follower reads).

Bug fix

Rating

Text

Why

Rating

Text

Why

Bad

Release note (bug fix): No more duplicate rows for CREATE TABLE ... AS 

  • Category is not valid.

  • Description does not use requested format.

  • We know the symptom of the bug (duplicate rows) but not the cause and when the bug was introduced. 

Better

Release note (bug fix): Fixed a bug that caused duplicate rows in the results of CREATE TABLE ... AS when multiple nodes attempt to populate the results.

or

Multiple nodes attempting to populate the results of CREATE TABLE ... AS no longer causes duplicate rows in the results.

  • Category is valid.

  • Description uses request format.

  • We know the symptom of the bug (duplicate rows), the cause of the bug (multiple nodes attempting to populate results), but not when it was introduced.

Best

Release note (bug fix): Fixed a bug introduced in v19.2.3 that caused duplicate rows in the results of CREATE TABLE ... AS when multiple nodes attempt to populate the results. 

or

Multiple nodes attempting to populate the results of CREATE TABLE ... AS no longer causes duplicate rows in the results. This bug was introduced in v19.2.3.

  • Category is valid.

  • Description uses requested format.

  • We know the symptom of the bug (duplicate rows), the cause of the bug (multiple nodes attempting to populate results), and when it was introduced (v19.2.3).

Backward-incompatible change

Rating

Text

Why

Rating

Text

Why

Bad

Release note (sql): Match extract('epoch' from interval) behavior in PostgreSQL/CockroachDB to 365.25 days. 

  • Category is valid but not correct. Although this is a SQL change, it is backward-incompatible.

  • Description does not use requested format.

  • We do not know what changed, how it changed, although there's a suggestion of why it changed (Postgres compatibility). 

Better

Release note (sql): Casting intervals to integers and floats now values a year at 365.25 days in seconds instead of 365 days.

  • Category is valid but not correct. Although this is a SQL change, it is backward-incompatible.

  • Description uses request format.

  • We know what changed (how a year is valued when casting intervals to integers and floats), how it changed (365.25 days in seconds instead of 365 days), but not why it changed.

Best

Release note (backward-incompatible change): Casting intervals to integers and floats now values a year at 365.25 days in seconds instead of 365 days, for Postgres compatibility. 

  • Category is valid.

  • Description uses requested format.

  • We know what changed (how a year is valued when casting intervals to integers and floats), how it changed (365.25 days in seconds instead of 365 days), and why it changed (Postgres compatibility).

How to change release note texts

There is currently no way for Engineers to add or amend release note texts to a merged PR. For now, if you have a text you need to add, change, or tell the Docs team to ignore, please add it in a comment to the relevant release notes tracking issue.

Details required:

  • Link to relevant PR

  • Type of change

    • Add release note text

    • Change release note text

    • Tell Docs to ignore release note text

  • New text

  • Expected release