Yes, ship it!

The ultimate release script

Whenever the answer is "Yes, ship it!" you will need yes_ship_it, this tool. It is the ultimate helper in releasing software.

Shipping software is not an action. It's a state of mind. yes_ship_it helps you to make sure that reality matches this state of mind. It won't fix the bugs in your software, it doesn't create the tests which would need to be there, it doesn't write your release notes. It does make sure that your good engineering is delivered to your users with zero cost.

The approach of yes_ship_it is different from the typical release script. It doesn't define a series of steps which are executed to make a release. It defines a sequence of assertions about the release, which then are checked and enforced.

This works in a way you could describe as idempotent, which means you can execute it as many times as you want, the result will always be the same, regardless of the initial state. That means the whole process is robust against errors which happen during releasing, it transparently copes with manual tweaks and changes, and it works on old releases just as well as on new releases.

After successfully running yes_ship_it your release will have shipped, and the state of the world will reflect the state of your mind.

yes_ship_it assumes that you develop your software in a version control system and keep at least some minimal state of releases there. This could just be a tag. It also assumes that you are able to run yes_ship_it from the command line and have some access to the systems which are needed to complete the things part of a release.

Go to the checkout of the sources of your software. Check that there is a file called yes_ship_it.conf there. Run yes_ship_it. Done.

The central configuration of what happens when you run yes_ship_it is the yes_ship_it.conf file in the root directory of the sources of your software. There you define the sequence of assertions which are run through for making sure that the release is happening in the way you intend. yes_ship_it comes with some predefined sequences of assertions you can simply reuse.

The format of yes_ship_it.conf uses YAML. A minimal yes_ship_it.conf file could look like this:

include:
  standard_rubygem

A more detailed configuration could look like this:

assertions:
  - ci_green
  - release_notes
  - version_number
  - gem_built
  - release_tagged
  - gem_pushed

There can be more configuration on a general level or the level of the assertions to adjust to specific needs of each software project. There also can be other or additional assertions.

Many software projects will have specific needs for their releases. These can be broken down and reflected in additional assertions. Adding assertions is easy. There is a well-defined API for it.

You can extend yes_ship_it by writing local assertions as plugins. Use the command yes_ship_it plugin to generate and manage them.

While plugins can be useful for very special assertions or as a start for new ones, it would be great to generalize them and ship them with yes_ship_it. This will maximize the value for the community of people who ship software. The project is very open to include new assertions. Just submit a pull request. yes_ship_it will ship it with the next release.

Testing a tool such as yes_ship_it is not easy because its prime functionality is to interact with other systems and publish data. There are unit tests for the code. There also are integration tests which work in a virtual environment which fakes the services yes_ship_it interacts with. It uses the pennyworth tool to manage the virtual environment and make them accessible in a convenient way from the RSpec tests.

You get basic documentation from the tool itself by executing yes_ship_it help. There also is a simple man page with some pointers.

The main documentation with details about different scenarios how yes_ship_it can be used is maintained in the Wiki. You are welcome to contribute there.

There is a list of users of yes_ship_it. I'm happy to add you there. Just send me a pull requests for the USERS.md file.

yes_ship_it is licensed under the MIT license.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me: Cornelius Schumacher schumacher@kde.org.