Release

Artefacts produced by the project

The project produces distributable Python package artefacts derived from the main codebase.

For each release, the following artefacts are generated:

Python wheel package (.whl)
Example:
popcorn_meter-2.4.7-py3-none-any.whl
Source distribution (.tar.gz)
Example:
popcorn_meter-2.4.7.tar.gz

In addition, GitHub automatically generates source code archives:

Source code (zip)
Source code (tar.gz)

The wheel package allows users to install the project directly using pip, while the source distribution allows manual builds or installations from source.

Release repositories

Project releases are distributed through GitHub Releases and TestPyPI.

GitHub is used to host versioned releases because it:

integrates directly with the source repository
automatically generates release notes
stores release artefacts
integrates with CI/CD pipelines

In addition, the Python package is published to TestPyPI, which is the testing environment for the Python Package Index. This allows verification that the package builds and installs correctly before a potential publication to the official PyPI repository.

The latest package release can be accessed at:

https://test.pypi.org/project/popcorn-meter/

Release automation

The release process is fully automated using GitHub Actions, Poetry, and semantic-release.

The deployment workflow is defined in:

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

A release is triggered automatically when:

changes are merged into the main/master branch
all CI tests pass successfully

The workflow performs the following steps:

Checkout the repository
Install dependencies using Poetry
Determine the next semantic version
Generate release notes automatically
Create a GitHub release
Build package artefacts
Publish the package to TestPyPI

Version numbers are automatically determined by semantic-release, based on the commit messages.

Latest release

The most recent release shown in the repository is version 2.4.7. It focused on cloud deployment stability and release-pipeline reliability. The changes included:

stabilizing Streamlit cloud deployment
adjusting packaging and installation behavior for hosted environments
updating documentation links and release metadata
improving release and publishing reliability
refining CI/CD and deployment configuration

These changes ensure that the packaging process, CI pipeline, and release workflow operate correctly.

Secrets and environment configuration

The release pipeline requires the following GitHub repository secrets:

Secret

Purpose

PYPI_USERNAME

Authentication username for PyPI/TestPyPI

PYPI_PASSWORD

PyPI API token

RELEASE_TOKEN

GitHub token used to create releases

These secrets are securely stored in GitHub and injected into the deployment workflow during execution.

License

The project is distributed under the Apache License 2.0.

This license was selected because it:

allows both academic and commercial use
permits modification and redistribution
provides an explicit patent grant
is widely adopted in open-source software projects

The same license applies to both the source code and the distributed artefacts.

Versioning schema

The project follows Semantic Versioning (SemVer) using the format:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

Example:

1.1.2

Version numbers are incremented according to the type of change:

MAJOR – breaking changes
MINOR – backward-compatible new features
PATCH – bug fixes and small improvements

All generated artefacts share the same version number to maintain consistency.

Creating a new release

New releases are created automatically through the CI/CD pipeline:

Developers implement changes in a feature branch
The branch is merged into develop and then into main/master
The CI pipeline executes tests
If successful, semantic-release:

determines the next version
generates release notes
creates a GitHub release
uploads artefacts
publishes the package to TestPyPI

No manual tagging is required, as version tags are generated automatically by the release workflow.