Fix creation of releases #40840

tobiasdiez · 2025-09-17T07:12:43Z

As was pointed out on sage-devel, the creation of the release stopped working.

It appears there are actual multiple problems:

It tries to download tarballs from github (https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17717539782/job/50344525416#step:5:13), but since we haven't had a good release including tarballs in a while - this fails.
It checks that Volker uploaded some tarballs to the other mirrors before creating a release. If that's not done, or the download chooses an older mirror or something else goes wrong, then no github release is created at all
Some sage packages that are published independently had a symlink to the root version file as package-version.

All of these issues are fixed as follows:

Allow to fallback to upstream links to download tarballs
Remove those failing checks (if someone wants to check the integrity of the mirror network, this is better done in a separate workflow)
Replace symlinks

As a small bonus a new Announcment at https://github.com/sagemath/sage/discussions/categories/announcements is posted for each release. Also the workflow is renamed to "release" to make it easier to find.

📝 Checklist

The title is concise and informative.
The description explains in detail what this PR is about.
I have linked a relevant issue or discussion.
I have created tests covering the changes.
I have updated the documentation and checked the documentation preview.

⌛ Dependencies

tobiasdiez · 2025-09-17T07:26:06Z

Test run: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17790478578/job/50566153737?pr=40840

github-actions · 2025-09-17T08:42:52Z

Documentation preview for this PR (built with commit f2b0b0b; changes) is ready! 🎉
This preview will update shortly after each push to this PR.

kwankyu · 2025-09-17T09:02:09Z

You do not restore the code you removed, which was introduced by the PR #39194. Did you consider the problem the PR solved to prepare the present PR?

vincentmacri · 2025-09-17T14:54:11Z

As a small bonus a new Announcment at https://github.com/sagemath/sage/discussions/categories/announcements is posted for each release.

This seems unnecessary since we already have https://github.com/sagemath/sage/releases which is specifically for releases and where people would reasonably expect to find releases. I'd prefer if we didn't duplicate information unnecessarily and kept release announcements in the standard place for releases on GitHub. I also think that we could be making better use of GitHub Discussions than we are now, and I think this would clutter it with unnecessary announcements.

I don't know enough about the build and release process to comment on the rest of this, I'll leave that for others.

dimpase · 2025-09-17T15:37:35Z

You do not restore the code you removed, which was introduced by the PR #39194. Did you consider the problem the PR solved to prepare the present PR?

Do you mean to say that the current PR does not do the generation of release notes,
as in automatically-generated-release-notes ?

Anyway, #39194 had some very verbose code to do something which looks like a rather standard GitHub Action to upload a build artifact.
~~I presume one can use https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-notes-action~~

Actually, a more mainstream generate_release_notes: yes in action-gh-release is already there, so it should do the trick

vincentmacri · 2025-09-17T16:33:28Z

This seems unnecessary since we already have https://github.com/sagemath/sage/releases which is specifically for releases and where people would reasonably expect to find releases. I'd prefer if we didn't duplicate information unnecessarily and kept release announcements in the standard place for releases on GitHub. I also think that we could be making better use of GitHub Discussions than we are now, and I think this would clutter it with unnecessary announcements.

If you think there is a benefit to announcing releases on GitHub Discussions to be discussed there (would this replace or be in addition to the sage-release mailing list?) then I'd prefer a dedicated category for this like "Releases" instead of putting it in the general announcements.

dimpase · 2025-09-17T16:47:44Z

@tobiasdiez - would you add a call to https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-notes-action here, or in a followup?

dimpase · 2025-09-17T18:24:50Z

oops, sorry, it's actually looking fine. There is generate_release_notes: yes set in action-gh-release, which should do the trick.

kwankyu · 2025-09-17T22:13:49Z

You do not restore the code you removed, which was introduced by the PR #39194. Did you consider the problem the PR solved to prepare the present PR?

Do you mean to say that the current PR does not do the generation of release notes, as in automatically-generated-release-notes ?

No.

Anyway, #39194 had some very verbose code to do something which looks like a rather standard GitHub Action to upload a build artifact. ~~I presume one can use https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-notes-action~~

#39194 solved the problem raised in sagemath/website#480 (comment).

To solve the problem, #39194 replaced the action softprops/action-gh-release@v2 with the "very verbose code".

Then #40709 replaced the "very verbose code" with softprops/action-gh-release@v2 to help fix the assets problem, but ignored the issue solved by #39194.

Actually, a more mainstream generate_release_notes: yes in action-gh-release is already there, so it should do the trick

The present PR, as a sequel to #40709, should present a solution to both problems (sagemath/website#480 (comment)
and the assets problem). A proper approach would be one building upon the "very verbose code".

kwankyu · 2025-09-17T22:17:58Z

There are discussions going on. @vincentmacri has some questions, not answered yet.

@dimpase Why did you give "positive review" prematurely?

dimpase · 2025-09-17T22:25:20Z

@kwankyu sorry, you are not helpful here. Why do you force everyone to manually dig up what exactly you meant to solve in that old PR? You don't value other people time.

Anyhow I don't see your problem as a problem. Yes, all PRs merged in a stable release are listed, including ones merged in prereleases.
I think it's good and proper, ad this doesn't force people to manually dig through prereleases.

dimpase · 2025-09-17T22:29:32Z

@kwankyu this is good as is. If you want to improve, open a follow up PR.

kwankyu · 2025-09-18T08:26:28Z

I recommend you to merge #40843 to test your PR.

tobiasdiez · 2025-09-18T09:16:06Z

According to this result:

https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17822238155/job/50667845736

this PR seems to need work.

Thanks for testing.
Should be fixed now: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17823633479/job/50672384645?pr=40840

(that this fails is expected as I'm running it as part of this PR not via a tag)

kwankyu · 2025-09-18T10:08:46Z

.github/workflows/release.yml

    needs: [package_tarballs, sdists]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
-    if: github.ref_type == 'tag'
    permissions:


kwankyu · 2025-09-18T10:54:19Z

My idea for this was the following: we create those announcements in the Github Discussions for a couple of weeks to see how they look and get a feeling for them etc, and then I wanted to propose on sage-devel to replace sage-release with those GH Discussion Announcements.

I don't like your idea of using the sagemath repo itself as a playground or for experiments. Experiment the idea on your repo. Then if you are convinced that it is a good idea, then officially propose it to sage-devel.

On the other hand, I like the idea of replacing sage-release with the Github discussions. But we need to hear from the community and especially @vbraun before officially launching it.

I suggest to remove the "create discussion" part from this PR.

kwankyu · 2025-09-18T12:14:12Z

Thanks for testing. Should be fixed now: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17823633479/job/50672384645?pr=40840

(that this fails is expected as I'm running it as part of this PR not via a tag)

Test with #40843

https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17826513537

failed.

Please merge the branch of #40843 to your branch, so that I don't need to resolve merge conflicts any more. Then I will close #40843.

tobiasdiez · 2025-09-18T14:55:40Z

Thanks for testing. Should be fixed now: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17823633479/job/50672384645?pr=40840
(that this fails is expected as I'm running it as part of this PR not via a tag)

Test with #40843

https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17826513537

failed.

Looks like you forgot to set the secret.

vincentmacri · 2025-09-18T16:48:49Z

.github/workflows/release.yml

+          token: ${{ github.ref_type == 'tag' && secrets.RELEASE_CREATION_TOKEN || 'FAIL' }}
          generate_release_notes: true
          prerelease: ${{ contains(github.ref_name, 'beta') || contains(github.ref_name, 'rc') }}
+          discussion_category_name: announcements


Suggested change

discussion_category_name: announcements

I'm not opposed to replacing the sage-release mailing list like you suggested, but I agree with @kwankyu that there should be a discussion about it first on sage-devel.

If we do decide to announce releases on GitHub Discussions, I would really prefer that we have a dedicated "Release Announcements" category and keep the regular "Announcements" category for more substantial/important announcements (otherwise people will likely mute the announcements channel and miss important announcements).

As for testing it here for a few weeks before bringing it to sage-devel, I think looking at the conky repo you linked which does this is sufficient for getting a feel for it. My feeling from looking at https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/discussions/categories/general is that the automated posts to a category that has other uses will flood the category and make it hard to find more important discussions (which is why I would want a dedicated category for this).

I can create a dedicated category (perhaps "Releases" or "Release Announcements") when sage-devel decides to switch to github discussion.

I don't know if posting release announcements to a dedicated category is possible, by the way.

I can create a dedicated category (perhaps "Releases" or "Release Announcements") when sage-devel decides to switch to github discussion.

I don't know if posting release announcements to a dedicated category is possible, by the way.

In the workflow @tobiasdiez gives the name of the category to post to, so it should just be a matter of changing that to whatever you name the discussion category for release announcements.

I've now renamed the category to "Release". Since it's easy to just delete the category with all it's posts again, this should give a suitable testing env. But if you feel this should be discussed on sage-devel before testing it out in the sage repo, may I ask you to open such a discussion?

I will post an announcement after this PR is merged, that releases are now also on GH discussions and that people are invited to try to post/interact there and that after some testing phase we can decide to replace sage-release or to end the experiment.

I don't know what to write before this PR is merged, as there is nothing for people to see or try out yet. So what was your idea to post now to sage-devel?

I will post an announcement after this PR is merged, that releases are now also on GH discussions and that people are invited to try to post/interact there and that after some testing phase we can decide to replace sage-release or to end the experiment.

I worry that this will give the impression to the community that switching to GH discussion is already implemented and we are forcing the community to adopt it.

I agree with: "... looking at the conky repo you linked which does this is sufficient for getting a feel for it."

I don't know what to write before this PR is merged, as there is nothing for people to see or try out yet. So what was your idea to post now to sage-devel?

Just ask the community to look around the conky repo, and propose replacing the sage-release to release announcements in our own github discussion.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I still think it's better to give people an actual preview of how it would look like instead of a copy in some random, unrelated repo. Especially since this preview very simple to implement and can be reverted easily.

I also don't have time at the moment to write something suitable for sage-devel...

@vbraun Your opinion?

My opinion is that these notes are only needed for real releases.

kwankyu · 2025-09-18T22:04:08Z

Thanks for testing. Should be fixed now: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17823633479/job/50672384645?pr=40840
(that this fails is expected as I'm running it as part of this PR not via a tag)

Test with #40843
https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17826513537
failed.

Looks like you forgot to set the secret.

The secret is already used in the previous step.

Anyway, would you merge #40843 to this PR to facilitate testing?

…n release workflow

tobiasdiez · 2025-09-19T02:15:54Z

Thanks for testing. Should be fixed now: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17823633479/job/50672384645?pr=40840
(that this fails is expected as I'm running it as part of this PR not via a tag)

Test with #40843
https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17826513537
failed.

Looks like you forgot to set the secret.

The secret is already used in the previous step.

Then it is likely that there is a problem with using the secret as introduced in #40654 (which was never tested, right?) I've now removed the need of a secret by simply triggering the website workflow directly after creating a release.

This worked well: https://github.com/tobiasdiez/sage/actions/runs/17846322248 (the 401 error in the final trigger website workflow step is expected as I don't have the rights to do this) with release https://github.com/tobiasdiez/sage/releases/tag/10.11 and discussion tobiasdiez#16

kwankyu · 2025-09-19T02:27:14Z

The secret is already used in the previous step.

Then it is likely that there is a problem with using the secret as introduced in #40654 (which was never tested, right?)

As far as I remember, #40654 was tested with the secret.

I just checked my own repo that the secret is not there any more. Perhaps it was expired.

I created the secret again at my repo. I am testing again: https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17846547780

Let's see.

kwankyu · 2025-09-19T02:29:31Z

I am testing your branch merged with #40843. Please merge it to your branch to make things easy.

kwankyu · 2025-09-19T02:33:25Z

OK. With the added secret, it works:

https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17846547780

See also the created release: https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/releases/tag/100.1.beta35

saraedum · 2025-09-19T11:16:11Z

As a member of the Code of Conduct Committee, I am restoring the disputed label. Please note that this means that the approach that we agreed upon in sage-devel applies here now.

kwankyu · 2025-09-19T12:04:44Z

@tobiasdiez

Why do you remove .github/workflows/changelog_trigger.yml?

kwankyu · 2025-09-19T12:17:32Z

OK. You moved it. Looks okay. But that is another thing to watch to see if it works well.

sagemathgh-40843: Restore release notes creation step       fixes the issue discussed in https://groups.google.com/g/sage- devel/c/LFfhN0CpGJ8. However, we retain the idea of sagemath#40709 that a github release is made only in one step in the workflow. Previously, before sagemath#40709, a github release was made in two steps "Create release" and "Create release assets". This strategy worked well but started failing some months ago. Test (with sagemath#40840): https://github.com/kwankyu/sage/actions/runs/17846547780. ### 📝 Checklist  - [x] The title is concise and informative. - [x] The description explains in detail what this PR is about. - [x] I have linked a relevant issue or discussion. - [ ] I have created tests covering the changes. - [ ] I have updated the documentation and checked the documentation preview. ### ⌛ Dependencies    URL: sagemath#40843 Reported by: Kwankyu Lee Reviewer(s):

tobiasdiez added 4 commits September 17, 2025 14:28

Fix creation of package tarballs

0f0f8d6

Add creation of automatic announcement in discussions

27d0629

Fix download of sage_numerical_backends_coin

636d1ac

Fix version of sage-numerical-backends-xyz

a878878

github-actions bot added the s: needs review label Sep 17, 2025

Remove duplicate sdist

a619c02

tobiasdiez force-pushed the fix-release branch from 8069f9f to a619c02 Compare September 17, 2025 07:43

tobiasdiez requested review from dimpase and kwankyu September 17, 2025 07:55

dimpase added s: needs info and removed s: needs review labels Sep 17, 2025

dimpase added s: positive review and removed s: needs info labels Sep 17, 2025

dimpase approved these changes Sep 17, 2025

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kwankyu added s: needs work and removed s: positive review labels Sep 17, 2025

dimpase added s: positive review and removed s: needs work labels Sep 17, 2025

Fix tarballs upload

b056757

github-actions bot added s: needs review and removed s: needs work labels Sep 18, 2025

kwankyu reviewed Sep 18, 2025

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kwankyu added s: needs work and removed s: needs review labels Sep 18, 2025

github-actions bot added s: needs review and removed s: needs work labels Sep 18, 2025

tobiasdiez force-pushed the fix-release branch from 8d1f1d5 to b056757 Compare September 18, 2025 13:57

vincentmacri reviewed Sep 18, 2025

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tobiasdiez added 4 commits September 19, 2025 09:21

Remove the need for special secret by incorporating website trigger i…

db82b18

…n release workflow

Update discussion category name to 'releases' in release workflow

6829843

Fix changelog workflow trigger condition

07f6237

Add job names in release workflow

f2b0b0b

saraedum added the disputed PR is waiting for community vote, see https://groups.google.com/g/sage-devel/c/IgBYUJl33SQ label Sep 19, 2025

kwankyu mentioned this pull request Sep 20, 2025

Restore release notes creation step #40843

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