[FEATURE] How does one release a generic plugin?

[dblock]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

Other plugins, such as https://github.com/querqy/querqy-opensearch, want to be released independently of OpenSearch, following the release cadence that OpenSearch has, but not releasing as part of the default distribution.

What solution would you like?

• Some guidelines such as "follow branching of OpenSearch core" and "make CI/CD build against OpenSearch core main, x.y and x.y.z".
• An easy copy-pastable set of GHA workflows for a 1-click automated release.
• a RELEASING.md that explains how to use the above workflow.

[anirudha]

https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-plugin-template-java

another option

[AmiStrn]

@anirudha i think the direction @dblock is aiming for is the release process.
Publishing the plugin in an official manner so people may import and use it.

[YANG-DB]

I would also add a visible public place where the community can see and 'rank' the plugins
such as

• https://wordpress.org/plugins/
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode
• https://www.figma.com/community

We can offer our own plugin-registration url that will give visibility and allow to push notifications to such plugins and inform of a new versions or security patches ...

[ps48]

@dblock we have our first draft of querqy plugin release doc here

[reta]

Referring opensearch-project/project-website#929 and opensearch-project/opensearch-build#1916 for distributing plugins as ZIP Apache Maven artifacts