Prepare Code Freeze

Companion Guidance

Use update-project-version for version semantics, maintain-ci if the freeze changes nightly or release-branch automation, prepare-pr before opening the PR, and create-rc-tag to create the initial release candidate.

Workflow

Assume upstream is the NVIDIA repository remote (NVIDIA/NeMo-Fabric) and origin is a maintainer's fork.

1. Confirm the target release version from upstream/main:Cargo.toml. Derive the release branch as release/<major>.<minor>.
2. Prompt for <next-version> if the user did not provide it. This is the version that main moves to after the release branch is cut.

3. Fetch the latest main and create the release branch from upstream/main:

   git fetch upstream main
   git branch release/<major>.<minor> upstream/main
   git push upstream release/<major>.<minor>

   If the remote release branch already exists, verify it points where expected before continuing.

4. Create a PR branch from latest upstream/main, for example chore/version-bump-<major>.<minor>.
5. Run just set-version <next-version> to bump all release-versioned package surfaces on main.

6. Search documentation source for references to the old version and update current-version install commands, package examples, and configuration examples to <next-version> where appropriate:

   rg -n '<old-version>' README.md docs examples adapters \
     --glob '!docs/reference/api/**' || true

   Review matches before changing them. Leave intentional historical references alone, such as release notes, changelogs, generated build output, and third-party dependency attribution entries.

7. Validate with targeted checks:

   just set-version <next-version>
   cargo check --workspace --locked
   just build-all
   just wheels
   just --fmt --check
   rg -n '<old-version>' README.md docs examples adapters \
     --glob '!docs/reference/api/**' || true
   git diff --check

   Any remaining documentation matches for <old-version> should be intentional and called out in the PR description.

8. Open a PR targeting main using .github/pull_request_template.md. The PR must mention:
   • the new release branch
   • the nightly alpha branch config update
   • the just set-version <next-version> bump
   • documentation old-version reference updates or intentional leftovers
   • that release-bound PRs now target the new release/* branch
   • PR title should be: chore: bump development version to <next-version>
9. After the code-freeze workflow completes successfully, invoke create-rc-tag with the target release version from step 1 and RC_NUM=1. The version must correspond to release/<major>.<minor> (for example, pass 1.2.0 for release/1.2), not <next-version>.

Guardrails

• Do not create an RC tag for <next-version>; create RC 1 only for the target release version associated with release/<major>.<minor>.
• Do not target the code-freeze PR at the release branch. It targets main.
• Do not leave uncommitted user changes mixed into the code-freeze PR branch.