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Release Process#

The app is published in twice, in different build formats.

  • A PyPI distribution. This includes both a source distribution and built distribution (a wheel). Users install with pip install invokeai. The updater uses this build.
  • An installer on the InvokeAI Releases Page. This is a zip file with install scripts and a wheel. This is only used for new installs.

General Prep#

Make a developer call-out for PRs to merge. Merge and test things out.

While the release workflow does not include end-to-end tests, it does pause before publishing so you can download and test the final build.

Release Workflow#

The release.yml workflow runs a number of jobs to handle code checks, tests, build and publish on PyPI.

It is triggered on tag push, when the tag matches v*. It doesn't matter if you've prepped a release branch like release/v3.5.0 or are releasing from main - it works the same.

Because commits are reference-counted, it is safe to create a release branch, tag it, let the workflow run, then delete the branch. So long as the tag exists, that commit will exist.

Triggering the Workflow#

Run make tag-release to tag the current commit and kick off the workflow.

The release may also be dispatched manually.

Workflow Jobs and Process#

The workflow consists of a number of concurrently-run jobs, and two final publish jobs.

The publish jobs require manual approval and are only run if the other jobs succeed.

check-version Job#

This job checks that the git ref matches the app version. It matches the ref against the __version__ variable in invokeai/version/invokeai_version.py.

When the workflow is triggered by tag push, the ref is the tag. If the workflow is run manually, the ref is the target selected from the Use workflow from dropdown.

This job uses samuelcolvin/check-python-version.

Any valid version specifier works, so long as the tag matches the version. The release workflow works exactly the same for RC, post, dev, etc.

Check and Test Jobs#

  • python-tests: runs pytest on matrix of platforms
  • python-checks: runs ruff (format and lint)
  • frontend-tests: runs vitest
  • frontend-checks: runs prettier (format), eslint (lint), dpdm (circular refs), tsc (static type check) and knip (unused imports)

TODO We should add mypy or pyright to the check-python job.

TODO We should add an end-to-end test job that generates an image.

build-installer Job#

This sets up both python and frontend dependencies and builds the python package. Internally, this runs installer/create_installer.sh and uploads two artifacts:

  • dist: the python distribution, to be published on PyPI
  • InvokeAI-installer-${VERSION}.zip: the installer to be included in the GitHub release

Sanity Check & Smoke Test#

At this point, the release workflow pauses as the remaining publish jobs require approval. Time to test the installer.

Because the installer pulls from PyPI, and we haven't published to PyPI yet, you will need to install from the wheel:

  • Download and unzip dist.zip and the installer from the Summary tab of the workflow
  • Run the installer script using the --wheel CLI arg, pointing at the wheel:
./install.sh --wheel ../InvokeAI-4.0.0rc6-py3-none-any.whl
  • Install to a temporary directory so you get the new user experience
  • Download a model and generate

The same wheel file is bundled in the installer and in the dist artifact, which is uploaded to PyPI. You should end up with the exactly the same installation as if the installer got the wheel from PyPI.

Something isn't right#

If testing reveals any issues, no worries. Cancel the workflow, which will cancel the pending publish jobs (you didn't approve them prematurely, right?).

Now you can start from the top:

  • Fix the issues and PR the fixes per usual
  • Get the PR approved and merged per usual
  • Switch to main and pull in the fixes
  • Run make tag-release to move the tag to HEAD (which has the fixes) and kick off the release workflow again
  • Re-do the sanity check

PyPI Publish Jobs#

The publish jobs will run if any of the previous jobs fail.

They use GitHub environments, which are configured as trusted publishers on PyPI.

Both jobs require a maintainer to approve them from the workflow's Summary tab.

  • Click the Review deployments button
  • Select the environment (either testpypi or pypi)
  • Click Approve and deploy

If the version already exists on PyPI, the publish jobs will fail. PyPI only allows a given version to be published once - you cannot change it. If version published on PyPI has a problem, you'll need to "fail forward" by bumping the app version and publishing a followup release.

Failing PyPI Publish#

Check the python infrastructure status page for incidents.

If there are no incidents, contact @hipsterusername or @lstein, who have owner access to GH and PyPI, to see if access has expired or something like that.

publish-testpypi Job#

Publishes the distribution on the Test PyPI index, using the testpypi GitHub environment.

This job is not required for the production PyPI publish, but included just in case you want to test the PyPI release.

If approved and successful, you could try out the test release like this:

# Create a new virtual environment
python -m venv ~/.test-invokeai-dist --prompt test-invokeai-dist
# Install the distribution from Test PyPI
pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ invokeai
# Run and test the app
invokeai-web
# Cleanup
deactivate
rm -rf ~/.test-invokeai-dist

publish-pypi Job#

Publishes the distribution on the production PyPI index, using the pypi GitHub environment.

Publish the GitHub Release with installer#

Once the release is published to PyPI, it's time to publish the GitHub release.

  1. Draft a new release on GitHub, choosing the tag that triggered the release.
  2. Write the release notes, describing important changes. The Generate release notes button automatically inserts the changelog and new contributors, and you can copy/paste the intro from previous releases.
  3. Use scripts/get_external_contributions.py to get a list of external contributions to shout out in the release notes.
  4. Upload the zip file created in build job into the Assets section of the release notes.
  5. Check Set as a pre-release if it's a pre-release.
  6. Check Create a discussion for this release.
  7. Publish the release.
  8. Announce the release in Discord.

TODO Workflows can create a GitHub release from a template and upload release assets. One popular action to handle this is ncipollo/release-action. A future enhancement to the release process could set this up.

Manual Build#

The build installer workflow can be dispatched manually. This is useful to test the installer for a given branch or tag.

No checks are run, it just builds.

Manual Release#

The release workflow can be dispatched manually. You must dispatch the workflow from the right tag, else it will fail the version check.

This functionality is available as a fallback in case something goes wonky. Typically, releases should be triggered via tag push as described above.