Stable request

This article describes Article description::the procedure for moving an ebuild from testing to stable.

Checklist for a stabilization request
The requirements for stabilization can be found in the Section Keywording of the Developer Manual. Go through this checklist before opening a new stabilization request.


 * Live ebuilds (-9999) cannot be stabilized
 * See KEYWORDS for more information on stable/unstable branch
 * Did you test the version you want to become stable thoroughly?
 * Do tests pass? (not necessary to check as a user)
 * Are there other bug reports regarding this package (focus on regressions)?
 * Is the ebuild older than 30 days (sooner for security issues or serious regressions)?
 * Are its dependencies all marked stable? (This can be handled in the same bug)
 * The stabilization requires developer time. Until we have automatic stabilization it makes sense to limit stabilization requests to ebuilds which benefit somehow from a stabilization.

Responsibility
The primary purpose of the stabilization process is to ensure an ebuild is ready for all users in the official Gentoo ebuild repository. This can involve maintaining the consistency of the dependency graph, basic compatibility checks with other packages, and smoke testing of the package itself.

Stabilization is not intended to relieve a package maintainer of their responsibility to ship a quality package - the primary responsibility of ensuring that a package is a good stable candidate remains with the person approving the stabilization request. The stabilization process does not include more than basic functionality checks unless explicitly requested.

Requesting stabilization
Everybody can request stabilization by means of a stabilization bug ticket. Please request stabliization if a package you use and enjoy is not marked stable.

Sanity check
Periodically NATTkA will review stabilization requests for completeness and complain if there are invalid or missing atoms, setting a  or   flag as appropriate. This allows arch team members to filter out requests that are not known-good if they wish. A series of architecture-specific saved searches are available for convenience.

Simultaneous stabilization on all architectures
If you maintain an architecture-independent package (data files, icons, pure Perl,...) then you may request that your package be stabilized on all arches at once. To do this — when you are filing the stabilization bug — please add the keyword  in addition and CC the arches that you would like to stabilize.

The arch teams, when encountering the  keyword, should perform their usual set of tests on a single convenient architecture. Then, if everything works, stabilize not only the arch that was used during testing, but also all of the other arches in CC on the bug. Afterwards, the CC field can be cleared and the bug closed if appropriate.

External resources

 * https://github.com/mgorny/nattka/#filing-keywordingstabilization-bugs