Automate release preparation process

[ClaudiaComito]

Due Diligence

• General:
  • title of the PR is suitable to appear in the Release Notes
• Implementation:
  • unit tests: all split configurations tested
  • unit tests: multiple dtypes tested
  • benchmarks: created for new functionality
  • benchmarks: performance improved or maintained
  • documentation updated where needed

Description

Summary

This PR introduces a new GitHub Actions workflow named "Prep Heat Release". The workflow is designed to automate the process of preparing a release for the Heat project.

Motivation

The goal of this workflow is to streamline the release preparation process by automating version extraction, branch creation, and version bumping. This reduces manual effort and minimizes the risk of human error.

Workflow Details

The workflow is triggered when an issue is opened with the label release-prep. A dedicated issue template has been added to the repo.

Impact

These changes will automate the release preparation process. It will create new release branches if needed, and update version numbers automatically based on the issue title. It will create a PR where further (manual) work can be collected.

The resulting PR looks like this.

Issue/s resolved: #1709

Changes proposed:

• Added a new issue template for release preparation in .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/release_prep.md to guide users through the process of triggering the release preparation workflow.
• Created a new GitHub Actions workflow in .github/workflows/release-prep.yaml to automate the release preparation process, including extracting version information, creating release branches, updating version numbers, and creating pull requests.
• Updated RELEASE.md to reflect the new automated release preparation process, including instructions on how to trigger the workflow, update version numbers, and publish releases. [1] [2] [3]
• Added placeholders for additional release methods such as easybuild, spack, and Docker in RELEASE.md.

Type of change

Automation and docs update

Memory requirements

Performance

Does this change modify the behaviour of other functions? If so, which?

no