Release of v18.0.0-RC1

[harshit-gangal]

This release is scheduled for: Tuesday 3 October 2023.

Pre-Release

• Notify the community on Slack a few days prior to code freeze.
• Follow pre-release instructions from release documentation.
• Add the Backport to: release-18.0 label
• Make sure the release notes summary is prepared and clean
• Clean up deprecated flags
• Vitess PRs to verify are merged
  • VDiff: Cleanup the controller for a VDiff before deleting it #14107
• Vitess Operator PRs to verify are merged
  • update go version to go1.21.1 planetscale/vitess-operator#476

Release

• Follow the release instructions for release candidates: here
• On the Vitess website repository, create a v19.0 directory and update the sidebar.
• On the website docs menu, change v18.0 from Development -> Release Candidate.
• Merge the 18.0.0 release notes on main.
  • Release of v18.0.0-rc1 #14136 - r18 branch
  • update release notes on main after releases #14171 - main branch
• Move the release-18.0 branch back to dev mode
• Release the operator, v2.11.0-rc1

Post-RC1-Release

• Notify the community on Slack.
• Merge website PR
  • doc changes to release 18.0 rc1 and 19.0 doc cutover website#1611
• Tweet both vitess release and operator release

[harshit-gangal]

Completed