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

@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ features:
         executed for the kinds of changes that were committed, speeding up
         overall pipeline execution.
-    - name: "Create and toggle feature flags for your applications (ALPHA) **[PREMIUM]**"
+    - name: "Create and toggle feature flags for your applications (ALPHA)"
       available_in: [premium, ultimate]
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/operations/feature_flags.html'
       image_url: '/images/11_4/feature_flags.png'
@@ -153,18 +153,24 @@ features:
       team: release
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/6220'
       description: |
-        This feature gives you the ability to configure and manage feature flags for
+        This feature gives you the ability to create and manage feature flags for
         your software directly in the product. Simply create a new feature
         flag, validate it using the simple API instructions in your software,
         and you have the ability to control the behavior of your software
         in the field via the feature flag within GitLab itself.
+        Feature Flags offer a feature toggle system for your application. 
+        They enable teams to achieve Continuous Delivery by deploying new 
+        features to production at smaller batches for controlled testing, 
+        separating feature delivery from customer launch. This helps reducing 
+        risk and allows you to easily manage which features to enable.
+
         Note that this is an alpha feature being introduced for the first time,
         so while we encourage you to check out the feature and provide feedback
         we want you to be aware that the implementation could change in subsequent
         releases.
-    - name: "Add timed incremental rollouts to AutoDevOps **[PREMIUM]**"
+    - name: "Add timed incremental rollouts to AutoDevOps"
       available_in: [premium, ultimate]
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/#timed-incremental-rollout-to-production'
       image_url: '/images/11_4/timed_incremental_rollouts.png'
@@ -470,15 +476,15 @@ features:
     - name: "Allow pipelines to schedule delayed job runs"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
-      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines.html#delay-a-particular-job-in-the-pipeline-graph'
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/README.html#when-delayed'
       reporter: jlenny
       team: verify
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/51352'
       description: |
-        It is now possible to set a job to start after a delay timer
-        via the `.gitlab-ci.yml`. The timer starts ticking when the job
-        would have otherwise started, giving you control to implement
-        tasks that need to wait for a period of time to occur - for
+        It is now possible to set a job to start after a delay 
+        via the `when` keyword in `.gitlab-ci.yml`. The timer starts 
+        ticking when the job would have otherwise started, giving you 
+        control to implement tasks that need to wait for a period of time to occur - for
         example, when implementing timed incremental rollouts, or any
         other delays needed after performing some other action.
@@ -732,9 +738,7 @@ barometer:
     migrations we have introduced background migrations.
     GitLab.com migrations took approximately 34 minutes and post-deploy migrations amounted for a
-    total of around two minutes. Background migrations on the other hand are sidekiq jobs that will
-    run synchronously, for this release these migrations took around Z days to complete, no side
-    effects were expected nor present, these target older pipeline builds so newer executed pipelines are not affected.
+    total of around two minutes.
     GitLab Geo users, please consult the documentation on [upgrading Geo](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/geo/replication/updating_the_geo_nodes.html).