Posit Dev Py Shiny Py Shiny

Shiny for Python Release Train

Walk through releasing the full py-shiny ecosystem interactively. Each phase requires explicit user confirmation before proceeding to the next.

Interactive Protocol

• Present one phase at a time with its checklist
• After presenting a phase, stop and wait for the user to confirm completion or ask for help
• Use gh CLI for GitHub operations (PRs, releases, tags)
• Track progress with a TodoWrite checklist
• If the user says "skip", mark the phase done and move on
• If a phase fails, help debug before moving on
• Never proceed to the next phase until the current one is resolved or explicitly skipped

Pre-release gate (REQUIRED before any release action)

Before tagging, creating a GH Release, or pushing a tag for ANY package, stop and run this verification checklist with the user:

1. Show the release summary:
   • Package name and version
   • RC branch name and PR link
   • CI status (link to the passing run)
   • Changelog entry (show the relevant section)
   • Dependency check result (any git-based deps found?)
   • For py-shiny: shinylive example test results
2. Ask for explicit confirmation:

   "Ready to release {package} v{version}? This will tag the commit and publish to {registry}. Please confirm with 'yes' to proceed."

3. Do NOT proceed until the user explicitly says "yes", "go", "proceed", or equivalent
4. If the user raises concerns, address them before re-presenting the gate

Getting Started

1. Ask the user which version of py-shiny is being released (e.g., 1.3.0)
2. Ask if py-htmltools also needs a release (and what version)
3. Ask if any Shiny HTML Dependencies were updated (triggers shinyswatch prerequisite)
4. Create a TodoWrite checklist of all 13 phases
5. Begin with Phase 1

Phase Overview

[ ] Phase 1:  Prerequisites (shinyswatch update if HTML deps changed)
[ ] Phase 2:  Release py-htmltools
[ ] Phase 3:  Release py-shiny
[ ] Phase 4:  Release py-shinyswatch
[ ] Phase 5:  Release py-shinywidgets
[ ] Phase 6:  Update Shinylive (JS) repo
[ ] Phase 7:  Update py-shinylive
[ ] Phase 8:  Update r-shinylive
[ ] Phase 9:  Update py-shiny (bump shinylive docs version)
[ ] Phase 10: Update py-shiny-site
[ ] Phase 11: Conda-forge
[ ] Phase 12: Huggingface
[ ] Phase 13: Publish blog post

For detailed steps in each phase, read references/release-phases.md.

Repos

General Package Release Pattern

Many phases (2-5, 7) follow this common flow:

1. Checkout branch rc-vX.Y.Z
2. Verify pyproject.toml has no git-based deps (e.g., no htmltools @ git+https://...)
3. Bump version (changelog + __init__.py, or tag-based for py-shiny)
4. Commit, push, open PR, wait for CI
5. Verify no additional commits were added to the RC branch beyond the release prep
6. Run the pre-release gate (see above) - present summary and get explicit user confirmation
7. Squash merge the RC PR into main via GitHub (this is the release commit)
8. Tag the squash commit on main: git checkout main && git pull && git tag vX.Y.Z && git push origin vX.Y.Z
9. Create GH Release with changelog content, mark as "Latest"
10. Wait for PyPI publish to succeed
11. If publish fails: delete tag + GH Release, fix, redo

GH Release naming conventions

Each repo's PyPI publish workflow triggers based on the GH Release title matching a specific prefix. Always check the workflow file if unsure, but the known patterns are:

Also, before writing release notes, check existing releases for format conventions: gh api repos/<org>/<repo>/releases --jq '.[:3] | .[] | .body'

Parallelism

Once the PyPI packages are published (phases 2-7), several later phases can run concurrently since they are independent:

• Phases 8, 9, 10 (r-shinylive, py-shiny docs bump, py-shiny-site) can all be started in parallel — they don't depend on each other, only on the earlier PyPI releases.
• Phase 11 (conda-forge) is passive — just checking for bot PRs — and can be monitored alongside other work.
• Phase 12 (Huggingface) is a quick restart/check and can be done anytime after py-shiny is on PyPI.

When the user asks to skip ahead or work on multiple phases, take advantage of this. Open PRs for independent phases, watch CI in the background, and report results as they come in.

On Failure

• For PyPI failures: remind user to delete the tag and GH Release before retrying
• For CI failures: help investigate logs with gh run view
• For shinylive build failures: check make clean && make all output
• Never proceed to the next phase until the current one is resolved or explicitly skipped

Source: posit-dev/py-shiny — distributed by TomeVault.