Add documentation for release process

docs/README.md

@@ -161,6 +161,9 @@ Dependencies are managed through go module. To build the project, first turn on
 * To execute integration tests, run: `make test-integration`
 * To execute e2e tests, run: `make test-e2e-single-az` and `make test-e2e-multi-az`
 
+### Release Process
+Please see [Release Process](./RELEASE.md).
+
 **Notes**:
 * Sanity tests make sure the driver complies with the CSI specification
 * EC2 instance is required to run integration test, since it is exercising the actual flow of creating EBS volume, attaching it and read/write on the disk. See [Integration Testing](../tests/integration/README.md) for more details.

docs/RELEASE.md

@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+# Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) CSI driver Release Process
+
+NOTE: Your GitHub account must have the required permissions and you must have generated a GitHub token.
+
+## Choosing the release version
+
+Using semantic versioning, pick a release number that makes sense by bumping the major, minor or patch release version.  If its a major or minor release (backwards incompatible changes, and new features, respectively) then you will want to start this process with an alpha release first.  Here are some examples:
+
+Bumping a minor version after releasing a new feature:
+```
+v1.4.5 -> v1.5.0-alpha.0
+```
+
+After testing and allowing some time for feedback on the alpha, releasing v1.5.0:
+```
+v1.4.5 -> v1.5.0
+```
+
+New patch release:
+```
+v1.5.3 -> v1.5.4
+```
+
+New major version release with two alpha releases:
+```
+v1.6.2 -> v2.0.0-alpha.0
+       -> v2.0.0-alpha.1
+       -> v2.0.0
+```
+
+## Choosing the release branch
+You also might need to create a release branch, if it doesn't already exist, if this release requires backporting changes to an older major or minor version.  For example, in the case that we are backporting a fix to the v0.5 release branch, and we have a v0.6 release branch (which we don't at the time of writing), then we would do the following:
+
+1. Create the release branch (named release-0.5) if it doesn't exist from the last v0.5.x tagged release (or check it out if it already exists).
+2. Cherry-pick the necessary commits onto the release branch.
+3. Follow the instructions below to create the release commit.
+4. Create a pull request to merge your fork of the release branch into the upstream release branch (i.e. <user>/aws-ebs-csi-driver/release-0.5 -> kubernetes-sigs/aws-ebs-csi-driver/release-0.5).
+
+## Create the release commit
+
+### Generate the CHANGELOG
+We need to generate the CHANGELOG for the new release by running `./hack/release`. You need to pass previous release tag to generate the changelog.
+
+```
+python3 release --github-user=ayberk --github-token=$GITHUB_TOKEN note --since <previous_version_tag>
+```
+
+This will print the CHANGELOG to stdout. You should create a new section for the new version and copy the output there.
+
+### Update the README
+Search for any references to the previous version on the README, and update them if necessary.
+
+### Update the build and deployment files
+1. Update the VERSION variable in the Makefile
+1. Update Helm values
+   - `aws-ebs-csi-driver/values.yaml`
+   - `aws-ebs-csi-driver/Chart.yaml`
+1. Update `deploy/kubernetes/overlays/stable/kustomization.yaml`
+   - ECR images are deployed via an AWS-internal process. Please don't update the ECR overlay.
+
+### Send a release PR
+At this point you should have all changes required for the release commit. Verify the changes via `git diff` and send a new PR with the release commit against the release branch. Note that if it doesn't exist, you'll need someone with write privileges to create it for you.
+
+## Tag the release
+
+Once the PR is merged, pull the release branch locally and tag the release commit with the relase tag. You'll need push privileges for this step.
+
+```
+git checkout release-0.7
+git pull upstream release-0.7
+git tag v0.7.0
+git push upstream v0.7.0
+```
+
+## Verify the release on GitHub
+
+The new tag should trigger a new Github release. Verify that it has run by going to [Releases](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/aws-ebs-csi-driver/releases). Then, click on the new version and verify all assets have been created:
+
+- Source code (zip)
+- Source code (tar.gz)
+
+## Promote the new images on GCR
+
+Promote the new images from the staging repo by sending a PR to the kubernetes/k8s.io repo. Here's an [example PR](https://github.com/kubernetes/k8s.io/pull/1606).
+
+## Merge the release commit to the main branch
+
+Once the images promoted, send a PR to merge the release commit to the main branch.
+
+## Verify the helm chart release
+
+Visit the [Releases](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/aws-ebs-csi-driver/releases) pages to verify we have a new helm chart release.
+