This document describes the policy for updating the snapcraft package in a stable supported distro, including LTS.

snapcraft is the tool to create snaps. This package needs to be kept in sync with snapd releases so we can build snaps that will work with the latest features added to Ubuntu Core. snapd already has an exception to release new versions into the stable distro; therefore in addition to critical bug fixes, new features and small improvements are allowed in an snapcraft update as long as the conditions outlined below are met.

QA Process

This is the mandatory QA process that the proposed packages have to pass. The following requirements must be met:

Before a pull request lands into master

• each change must be reviewed and approved by at least one member of the snapcore github team before landing into the master branch.

• each change must be fully tested at the unit level.
• each change affecting the user interface (cli or others) or file format must have an automated integration test.
• each new feature must have an example that can be built, installed and executed as a snap.
• all the unit, integration and examples tests must pass in one architecture.
• all the bugs reported in launchpad that will be fixed in this release must have a link to the pull request that fixes them. These bugs must be marked as "Fix Committed" at the project level once that pull request is merged into master.

Before the package is in proposed

• all the unit, integration and examples tests must pass in all the supported architectures. They are executed for all the architectures during the build of the deb package that will go into proposed in the case of the unit tests, and during the autopkgtest execution in the case of integration and examples tests.

When the package is in proposed

• upgrade test from previous version of the package. This test must be performed with:
  • apt install/upgrade.
• each bug fix that affects the user interface must have one QA review. The QA engineer will verify that the bug is fixed in a system with the proposed package installed by executing an automated or manual test.
• the QA team will perform extensive exploratory testing on the areas that will be changed by the release.
• test interaction with the snapd installed in the system:
  • build a snap with the new snapcraft package and install it with the existing snapd package.

The tests for the package in proposed will be documented in the SRU bug and can be performed by any QA engineer.

This is a package new in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Once we have another stable Ubuntu version released this should be added to the above process:

• upgrade test from previous distribution to the current one. If the current distribution is an LTS one, the upgrade path from the previous LTS distro must also be exercised.

Requesting the SRU

The SRU should be requested as usual (StableReleaseUpdates) with the additional note about having the above steps being completed.

Releasing the SRU

The SRU may be released without meeting the aging period of 7 days provided all the above steps have been completed.