Release post - GitLab 11.4

Review Apps: https://release-11-4.about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/

Release post:

• Intro: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/source/posts/2018-10-22-gitlab-11-4-released.html.md
• Items: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/release_posts/2018_10_22_gitlab_11_4_released.yml
• Images: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/tree/release-11-4/source/images/11_4

Related files:

• Features YAML link: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/features.yml
• Home page banner: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/source/includes/hello-bar.html.haml
• MVPs: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/mvps.yml

Handbook references:

• Blog handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/
• Release post handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/
• Markdown guide: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/technical-writing/markdown-guide/

People:

• Release Post Managers: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/managers/
• Release Managers: https://about.gitlab.com/release-managers/

Release post manager	Tech writer	Copyedit	Messaging Lead	Social
@jramsay	@eread	xx	@johnjeremiah	xx

General contributions

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

All contributions added by team members, collaborators, and Product Managers (PMs).

Author's checklist

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd) - @jramsay

The PM leading the post is responsible for adding and checking the following items:

• Label MR: ~"blog post" release release post ~P1
• Assign the MR to yourself
• Add milestone
• Update the links and due dates in this MR description
• Make sure the blog post initial files, as well as this MR template contain the latest templates
• Add authorship (author's data)
• Ask the Marketing reviewer to add the introduction
• Add MVP (feature block)
• Add MVP to data/mvps.yml
• Add cover image (image_title) (scaled and compressed)
• Add social sharing image (twitter_image) (scaled and compressed)
• Make sure all feature descriptions are positive and cheerful
• Make sure all features listed in the direction page are included in the post
• Mention the release managers to remind them to add the upgrade barometer section
• Mention the team leads to remind them to add the performance improvements: Yorick, Douwe, Sean, Remy, Stan, Kamil, Tim Z., Clement, Andre
• Ping @atflowers and @aoetama to add the Release Radar webcast link
• Make sure Upgrade barometer is in
• Check which one is the top feature (with Job and William)
• Check if deprecations are included
• Alert people one working day before each due date (post a comment to #release-post Slack channel)
• Remove remaining template sections
• Make sure all images (png, jpg, and gifs) are smaller than 300 KB each
• Run the release post through an automated spell and grammar check
• Perform the content review

Recurring blocks

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

The following sections are always present, and managed by the PM or Eng lead owning the related area:

• Add GitLab Runner improvements: Fabio
• Add Omnibus improvements: Joshua
• Add Mattermost update to the Omnibus improvements section: Victor
• Add Performance improvements: Douwe, Sean, Kamil, Yorick, Tim

Feature blocks

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

The Product Managers are responsible for adding their feature blocks to the release post by the due date for general contributions. PMs are also responsible for adding any notable Community Contributions.

PMs: please check your box only when all your features and deprecations were added with completion (documentation links, images, etc). Pls don't check if there are still things missing.

• Andreas (@akaemmerle)
• Daniel (@danielgruesso)
• Fabio (@bikebilly)
• James (@jramsay)
• Jason (@jlenny)
• Jeremy (@jeremy_)
• Joshua (@joshlambert)
• Victor (@victorwu)

Tip: make your own checklist:

• Primary features
• Improvements (secondary features)
• Deprecations
• Documentation updated
• Documentation links added to the post
• Community contributions
• Illustrations added to the post (compressed)
• Update features.yml (with accompanying screenshots)

Review

Ideally, complete the review until the 4th working day before the 22nd, so that the 3rd and the 2nd working day before the release could be left for fixes and small improvements.

Content review

Due date: 2018-10-15 (5th working day before the 22nd)

Performed by the author of the post: @jramsay

• Label MR: ~"blog post" release review-in-progress
• Check all comments in the thread (make sure no contribution was left behind)
• Check Features' names
• Check Features' availability (Core, Starter, Premium, Ultimate badges)
• Check Documentation links (all feature blocks contain documentation_link)
• Make sure documentation_link links to feature webpages when available
• Update home page bannersource/includes/hello-bar.html.haml
• Features were added to data/features.yml (with accompanying screenshots)
• Check all images size < 300KB (compress them all with TinyPNG or similar tool)
• Pull master, resolve any conflicts
• Make sure all discussions in the thread are resolved
• Mention Mark Pundsack to remind him to review
• Assign the MR to the next reviewer (structural check)
• Lock features.yml with File Locking on the 21st

Structural check

Due date: 2018-10-17 (3rd working day before the 22nd)

Performed by technical writers: @eread

• 1. Structural check
• Add the label review-structure
• Check frontmatter (entries, syntax)
• Check image_title and twitter_image
• Check image shadow applied correctly: {image_noshadow: true} when an image already has shadow
• Videos/iframes wrapped in <figure> tags (responsiveness)
• Wrap text
• Check headers in sentence case
• Check feature and product names in capital case
• Check if images are harmonic/consistent
• Add/check cover img reference (at the end of the post)
• Columns (content balance between the columns)
• Meaningful links (SEO)
• Badges consistency (applied to all headings)
• Double check documentation updates
• Check documentation links (point to /ee/, not to /ce/)
• Check about.gitlab.com links: relative URLs
• Check the anchor links in the intro
• Remove any remaining instructions
• Remove HTML comments
• Run deadlink checker
• Pull master
• Update release template with any changes (if necessary)
• Post a comment in the #general channel linking to the review app + MR reminding the team to take a look at the RP and report any problems in the #release-post channel. (Do NOT ping @all or @channel)
• Remove the label review-structure
• Assign the MR to the next reviewer (copyedit)

Further reviews

Due date: 2018-10-18 (2nd working day before the 22nd)

• Copyedit (content team): @erica
  • Title
  • Description
  • Intro
  • Grammar, spelling, clearness (body)
  • Homepage Blurb
  • Tweet social sharing text (for Twitter, FB, and LinkedIn)
  • Assign the MR to the next reviewer (marketing)
• Marketing review (PMMs - messaging lead): @johnjeremiah
  • Write the introduction (by the 6th day before the 22nd)
  • Check/copyedit feature blocks
  • Check/copyedit features.yml
  • Check/copyedit homepage blurb
  • Check/copyedit social sharing text
  • Mention Job for final check
  • Remove the label review-in-progress
  • Assign the MR back to the author

Merge it

The author of the post is responsible for merging the MR and following up with possible adjustments/fixes.

Last check before merging

• Read the important notes below
• Mention @matteeyah to remind him to send the swag pack to the MVP
• Check if all the anchor links in the intro are working
• Check if there are no broken links
• Pull master and fix any conflicts
• Check if there isn't any alert on Slack's #release-post and #general channels
• Check if there isn't any alert on this MR thread
• Check if the tweet copy is ready and someone is ready to share on social media
• Ask the release managers to ping you when the packs are publicly available (and GitLab.com is up and running on the release version)
• Unlock features.yml just before merging
• Merge the MR
• Wait for the pipeline
• Check the look on social media with Twitter Card Validator and Facebook Debugger
• Share on social media

Important notes

• The post is to be merged on the 22nd at 15:00 UTC and as soon as GitLab.com is up and running on the new release version, and all packages are publicly available. Not before.
• The usual release time is 15:00 UTC but it varies according to the deployment. If something comes up and delays the release, the release post will be delayed with the release.
• Coordinate the timing with the release managers. Ask them to keep you in the loop.
• After merging, wait a few minutes to see if no one spot an error (usually posted in #general), then share on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or make sure someone (Emily vH, JJ, Marcia) does.
• Keep an eye on Slack and in the blog post comments for a few hours to make sure no one found anything that should be fixed

data/release_posts/2018_10_22_gitlab_11_4_released.yml

@@ -139,10 +139,21 @@ features:
         all references in the repository. For example, fetching updates for a
         single branch (e.g. `git fetch origin master`) would also retrieve a
         complete list of all references. In the case of large projects this
-        could be over 100,000 refs and 10s of megabytes of data.
+        could be over 100,000 refs and 10s of megabytes of data. Try it
+        yourself by running:
+
+        ```
+        # Original Git wire protocol
+        GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 git -c protocol.version=0 ls-remote https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce.git master
+
+        # New Git wire protocol v2
+        GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 git -c protocol.version=2 ls-remote https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce.git master
+        ```
         Git protocol v2 is supported from Git v2.18.0 and is opt-in. To enable
-        globally run `git config --global protocol.version=2`.
+        globally run `git config --global protocol.version=2`. Git protocol v2
+        over SSH is not yet enabled on GitLab.com and must be enabled manually
+        for self-hosted instances.
     - name: "Move ability to use includes in .gitlab-ci.yml from starter to core"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
@@ -220,21 +231,81 @@ features:
         the rollout will automatically continue on a timed cadence 
         unless there is some error.
-    - name: "Lorem ipsum"
+    - name: "Support Kubernetes RBAC for GitLab managed apps"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
-      gitlab_com: false # required if the feature is NOT available in GitLab.com. Else, delete this line.
-      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/#amazing' # required
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/clusters/#role-based-access-control-rbac' # required
+      image_url: '/images/11_4/k8s-rbac.png' # required
+      reporter: danielgruesso
+      team: configure
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/29398' # required
+      description: | # supports markdown
+        Security is paramount when setting up your infrastructure for the first time or connecting to 
+        existing one. Role-based access control (RBAC) was made generally available as part of Kubernetes' 
+        1.8 release, providing more granular controls to regulate access to kubernetes resources.
+        
+        Our Kubernetes integration will now offer the capability to either create an RBAC-enabled 
+        cluster on GKE or to connect with an existing cluster that is RBAC-enabled, providing increased 
+        security for your infrastructure.
+
+    - name: "Auto DevOps support for RBAC"
+      available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/' # required
+      reporter: danielgruesso
+      team: configure
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/44597' # required
+      description: | # supports markdown
+        Auto DevOps now supports interacting with and deploying applications to RBAC-enabled kubernetes clusters.
+
+        Role-based access control (RBAC) is an important tool that allows operators to ensure the reliability, 
+        security, and efficiency of their kubernetes cluster. Using Auto DevOps in conjunction with an RBAC-enabled 
+        cluster ensures your applications take advantage of the increased infrastructure security.
+
+    - name: "Support PostgreSQL DB migration and initialization for Auto DevOps"
+      available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/#auto-deploy' # required
       image_url: '/images/X_Y/feature-a.png' # required
-      video: 'https://www.youtube.com/embed/enMumwvLAug' # example - optional - overrides image_url
-      reporter: pm1 # required
-      team: teamname # required
-      issue_url: '' # required
+      reporter: danielgruesso
+      team: configure
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/48004' # required
       description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
+        Leveraging Auto DevOps to automatically detect, build, test, deploy, and monitor your application 
+        just got more powerful. Starting in 11.4, Auto DevOps now provides the ability to initialize or 
+        migrate PostgreSQL databases in your project.
+
+        Simply define a project variable to initialize or migrate your PostgreSQL database and Auto DevOps
+        will do the rest.
+    
+    - name: "Batch comments for code review”
+      available_in: [premium, ultimate]
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/#amazing'
+      image_url: '/images/11_4/batch-comments.png'
+      reporter: victorwu
+      team: plan
+      issue_url: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/1984
+      description: |
+        Code review in merge requests is a powerful feature in GitLab. Team members have conversations linked to specific lines of code in a diff, and can even resolve them. However, the process can get unwieldy in merge requests with large diffs. Often, a reviewer may need to leave upwards of 10 or more comments in a single sitting. And the 9th or 10th comment may actually  render earlier comments unnecessary. The end result is that the the merge request author gets a slew of notifications and has to sort them out one by one.
+        
+        With this release, we are introducing batch comments for code review in GitLab merge requests. This will allow a reviewer to draft as many comments as they wish, make sure they are all consistent, and then submit them all as a single action. Since the drafts are saved to GitLab, a reviewer can even spread their work across many sittings, say starting a review on their desktop at work during the day, and then wrapping it up at home on their tablet device later in the evening. Once the draft comments are submitted, they appear as normal individual comments. This allows individual team members the flexibility to do code review however they want, but still being compatible with the entire team. 
 # SECONDARY FEATURES
   secondary:
+    - name: "List of subscribed labels"
+      available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html'
+      image_url: '/images/11_4/subscribed-labels.png'
+      reporter: victorwu
+      team: plan
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/50835'
+      description: |
+        Labels in GitLab are very powerful, since they can be applied to issues,
+        merge requests, and epics. As you use more labels, it can be difficult to
+        maintain them. 
+        
+        In a recent previous release, we added the ability to search by labels on 
+        the project labels list page. With this release, you can now search by labels,
+        sort by name/created at/updated at, and even see a list of labels you have
+        subscribed to. This is available both in group and project labels list pages.
+        
     - name: "Filter by WIP merge requests"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/work_in_progress_merge_requests.html'
@@ -503,6 +574,20 @@ features:
         example, when implementing timed incremental rollouts, or any
         other delays needed after performing some other action.
+    - name: "Skip auto devops jobs based on license"
+      available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/' # webpage or documentation - required
+      reporter: danielgruesso
+      team: configure
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/48399'
+      description: | # supports markdown
+        Starting in 11.4 Auto DevOps will now evaluate the license for the instance in which it's running 
+        in order to determine which jobs to skip. This will result in faster Auto DevOps pipeline when 
+        certain features are not in use.
+
+        This will not only save you time but will also result in cleaner view of Auto DevOps pipeline, 
+        showing you only the relevant jobs for your project.
+
     - name: "Lorem ipsum"
       available_in: [premium, ultimate] # required
       gitlab_com: false # required if the feature is NOT available in GitLab.com. Else, delete this line.
@@ -542,8 +627,9 @@ features:
       reporter: pm1 # required
       team: teamname # required
       description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
+        - GitLab 11.4 includes [Mattermost 5.3](https://mattermost.com/blog/mattermost-5-3-enhanced-search-on-desktop-and-mobile-plugin-hackathon-highlights-and-more/), 
+        an [open source Slack-alternative](https://mattermost.com/) whose newest release includes enhanced search on desktop and mobile, plus much more. 
+        It includes [security updates](https://about.mattermost.com/security-updates/) and upgrading is recommended.
     - name: "Performance improvements"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]