Improve release process documentation (#162)

Co-authored-by: hauntsaninja <>

Author: hauntsaninja

release_process.md

@@ -11,23 +11,28 @@
 4. Wait for the Travis CI and Appveyor builds to complete.
 5. Make sure there's nothing in your `typed_ast/dist` directory.
 6. Run `python3 setup.py sdist` (this creates `dist/typed-ast-VERSION.tar.gz`).
-7. Download the wheels from Travis-CI and Appveyor.  This can be done using
-   `tools/download_typed_ast.py`, or manually:
-
-   1. Find the Appveyor build for the tag
-      [here](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/ddfisher/typed-ast-a4xqu/history) and
-      download the artifact produced by each job into the `dist` directory.
-   2. Download [the latest manylinux
-      wheels](https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/typed-ast) into the
-      `dist` directory.  (You will have to sign in with your Google account to
-      access these wheels, but all Google accounts have access.)
+7. Download the wheels from Travis-CI and Appveyor.
+   - Do this using `tools/download_typed_ast.py`. If you run into issues,
+     download them manually:
+   - Find the Appveyor build for the tag
+     [here](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/ddfisher/typed-ast-a4xqu/history) and
+     download the artifact produced by each job into the `dist` directory.
+   - Download [the latest manylinux
+     wheels](https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/typed-ast) into the
+     `dist` directory.  (You will have to sign in with your Google account to
+     access these wheels, but all Google accounts have access.)
 
 8. On a Mac with Python 3.6, 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9 installed, run
   `python3.6 setup.py bdist_wheel`, `python3.7 setup.py bdist_wheel`,
   `python3.8 setup.py bdist_wheel` and `python3.9 setup.py bdist_wheel`
   (this creates wheels in `dist`).
-9. Upload the sdist and wheels to PyPI with `twine upload dist/*`.
-10. If possible, verify the final `typed_ast` wheels work on Windows, MacOS,
+9. Confirm that the wheels for MacOS target `macosx_10_9` (and not say,
+   `macosx_10_15`). You may need `export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.9` and
+   possibly to recompile Python with that environment variable set.
+10. Compare the wheels produced to previous release of typed-ast to make sure
+    you have the full matrix.
+11. If possible, verify the final `typed_ast` wheels work on Windows, MacOS,
     and Linux platforms.
-11. Make a commit which bumps the bugfix version and adds back the `.dev0`
+12. Upload the sdist and wheels to PyPI with `twine upload dist/*`.
+13. Make a commit which bumps the bugfix version and adds back the `.dev0`
     suffix.