Previously, the dev-infra release tool would publish major versions
directly to the NPM `@latest` dist tag. This is correct in theory, but
rather unpractical given that we want to publish packages first as
`@next` so that other dependent Angular packages can update too,
allowing us to publish all main Angular packages (from FW, COMP
and TOOL) at the same time to `@latest` on NPM.
This involves creating a new release action for re-tagging the
previously released major as `@latest` on NPM.
PR Close#42133
Currently if a major release-train in the `release-candidate`/`feature-freeze`
phase becomes `latest`, we intend to set the NPM LTS dist tag for all packages
of the previous major (as the old release train in `latest` moves into LTS phase).
The logic for this exists but the release tool sets the NPM dist tag for
all packages of the new major. This means that the script might error if
a new package is part of the new major; or it could cause a deleted
package to not receive the LTS tag properly.
PR Close#41946
Creates a tool for staging and publishing releases as per the
new branching and versioning that has been outlined in the following
document. The tool is intended to be used across the organization to
ensure consistent branching/versioning and labeling:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/197kVillDwx-RZtSVOBtPb4BBIAw0E9RT3q3v6DZkykU/edit#heading=h.s3qlps8f4zq7dd
The tool implements the actions as outlined in the following
initial plan: https://hackmd.io/2Le8leq0S6G_R5VEVTNK9A.
The implementation slightly diverged in so far that it performs
staging and publishing together so that releasing is a single
convenient command. In case of errors for which re-running the
full command is not sufficient, we want to consider adding
recover functionality. e.g. when the staging completed, but the
actual NPM publishing aborted unexpectedly due to build errors.
PR Close#38656
Paul Gschwendtner
Joey Perrott