Release process

Pixi is released in two steps: a version-bump PR, then a manually dispatched build-and-publish workflow.

1. Open the release PR

Run:

pixi run release

This branches from prefix-dev/pixi@main, bumps the version in crates/pixi/Cargo.toml and the other tracked files, regenerates the CHANGELOG.md section with git-cliff, updates the lock files, and opens a PR. Edit the ✨ Highlights section of CHANGELOG.md when prompted.

Review and merge the PR. crates/pixi/Cargo.toml is the single source of truth for the release version from here on.

2. Run the Release workflow

Once the bump PR is on main, go to the Release workflow and press Run workflow on main.

The workflow:

1. Reads the version from crates/pixi/Cargo.toml.
2. Builds, signs and packages every target (archives, raw binaries, and the Windows MSI).
3. Pushes the vX.Y.Z tag only after every build succeeds.
4. Publishes the GitHub release with notes taken from CHANGELOG.md and a sha256.sum of all artifacts.
5. Dispatches the docs deploy and the WinGet publish.

Enable dry-run to build and package everything without signing, tagging or publishing - useful for validating the build matrix from a branch.