Release Process¶

SWEN uses git tags as the version source of truth. A GitHub Release triggers automatic Docker image publishing to Docker Hub.

Version Scheme¶

SWEN follows Semantic Versioning: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

• PATCH: Bug fixes, minor improvements (no breaking changes)
• MINOR: New features (backwards compatible)
• MAJOR: Breaking changes (config format, DB schema, API)

Tags are always prefixed with v: v1.2.3

Step-by-Step Release¶

1 · Prepare the Code¶

# Make sure you're on main with a clean working tree
git checkout main
git pull origin main
git status  # should be clean

2 · Verify CI is Green¶

Check the GitHub Actions tab — all CI jobs must pass on the latest main commit before tagging.

3 · Create a GitHub Release¶

1. Go to GitHub → Releases → Draft a new release
2. Set the tag to vX.Y.Z targeting main
3. Write release notes (what changed, migration steps if any)
4. Click Publish release

The docker-publish.yml workflow fires automatically on publish.

4 · Monitor the Build¶

Watch the Actions tab. Three parallel jobs (backend / frontend / ml) should all go green within ~10 minutes.

5 · Verify Docker Hub¶

Check hub.docker.com/r/maltewin — all three images should have the new version tag and an updated latest.

Tags Produced¶

For v1.2.3:

maltewin/swen-backend:1.2.3    maltewin/swen-backend:1.2
maltewin/swen-backend:1        maltewin/swen-backend:latest

maltewin/swen-frontend:1.2.3   maltewin/swen-frontend:1.2
maltewin/swen-frontend:1       maltewin/swen-frontend:latest

maltewin/swen-ml:1.2.3         maltewin/swen-ml:1.2
maltewin/swen-ml:1             maltewin/swen-ml:latest

VERSION Build Arg¶

Each Dockerfile accepts a VERSION build arg that is baked into OCI image labels:

ARG VERSION=dev
LABEL org.opencontainers.image.version=$VERSION

docker/build-push-action passes VERSION=${{ steps.meta.outputs.version }} automatically.

Updating a Running Deployment¶

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

This pulls all three images (backend, frontend, ml) and restarts only the containers whose image changed. The postgres-data and ml-model-cache volumes are untouched.

Pre-releases¶

Tag as v1.2.3-rc1 — docker/metadata-action will create:

maltewin/swen-backend:1.2.3-rc1
maltewin/swen-backend:latest     ← note: pre-releases still update latest

If you don't want pre-releases to update latest, set flavor: latest=false in the metadata action for RC builds.

Hotfix on a Previous Minor¶

If main has already moved to v1.3.0 and you need to patch v1.2.x:

git checkout v1.2.0
git checkout -b hotfix/1.2.1
# ... fix ...
git tag v1.2.1
git push origin v1.2.1

Then create a GitHub Release from tag v1.2.1. Note: latest will not be updated if v1.2.1 < v1.3.0 — docker/metadata-action only updates latest for the highest semver tag.

Required Repository Secrets¶

Set these at GitHub → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions.