General Code Release Process and Timeline

Code Release follows the General Code Release Timeline process

General Code Release Timeline

Event	When (time before release)	What happens
science feature freeze for simulations	21 months before	All PRs for features intended to be released and used in associated simulations posted on github. Must be complete and ready to integrate. After integrations are complete, make first alpha tag and start component-level, "standalone" tuning.
Component tuning completed; coupled tuning begins	18 months before	All component level tuning must be done. Atmosphere-only cases, ocean-only, land-only, etc. All input files that will be needed for coupled runs finished and on input data server. Open PRs to add final tuning values/changes. After PRs are integrated, begin coupled tuning. Make first beta tag. After this, the compsets used in coupled simulations must stay bit-for-bit except for bug fixes, tuning updates.
Coupled tuning completed; coupled runs begins	15 months before	Start the coupled simulations to be included with release.
All-science freeze	1 month before	Any science code changes to be in release must have their PR merged to master by this date. Non-science config/performance changes still allowed.
Code Freeze	1 week before	No changes to any executed code. May still update README's and other documentation. Conduct final tests. Get DOI
vX.Y.0 tag made on master.	The release	New climate-changing PRs can be merged to master after this. Maintenance branch for release made.
Announce	days to few weeks after release	Send emails, update e3sm.org