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Release

Quick release

Option A — local release

Bump the version in gradle.properties, set the release date in versions.md, update the copyright year (see Step 2), commit, tag HEAD, and push main (but not the tag, see Step 3). Then one command does everything: pre-flight checks → build → Maven Central → Chocolatey (Windows only) → GitHub Release → SourceForge (setup JAR, README.md, default download, version.html) → blog post HTML:

./gradlew release

If a step fails, the error is shown, but the other steps continue. Steps that depend on a failed step are skipped (e.g. nothing is published if the pre-flight checks or the build fail, and version.html is not updated if the upload to SourceForge failed). A summary at the end shows the result of each step and the remaining manual steps: posting on Blogger and SourceForge news.

Docker push is not included — run ./gradlew dockerPush separately if needed.

Option B — fully automated

Push a version tag and GitHub Actions does everything (build → Maven Central → Chocolatey → GitHub Release):

# 1. Bump version in gradle.properties and update versions.md, then:
git add gradle.properties versions.md
git commit -m "Release version 1.10.3"
git tag v1.10.3
git push origin main v1.10.3

Requires GitHub secrets to be configured once. Docker push is not automated — run it manually when needed (see Step 7). SourceForge and the announcements are not automated by GitHub Actions — see Step 9 and Step 10.

What gets published

Artifact Registry Command
robocode.api, robocode.core, etc. (JARs) Maven Central (net.sf.robocode) ./gradlew publishAllPublicationsToSonatypeRepository closeAndReleaseSonatypeStagingRepository (or ./gradlew release)
robocode (Windows GUI installer) Chocolatey Community Repository ./gradlew chocoPush
zamboch/roborumble (RoboRumble server) Docker Hub ./gradlew dockerPush
robocode-{version}-setup.jar + release notes GitHub Release ./gradlew createGitHubRelease
robocode-{version}-setup.jar + README.md SourceForge Files (also the default download) ./gradlew setSourceForgeDefaultDownload
version.html (read by Robocode to check for new versions) SourceForge web (robocode.sourceforge.io/version/) ./gradlew updateSourceForgeVersion

Prerequisites

1. GPG key

Signing is required for Maven Central. See publish.md for full setup instructions.

The key must be exported to ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg and uploaded to a public key server:

gpg --keyring secring.gpg --export-secret-keys > ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys $KEY_ID

2. ~/.gradle/gradle.properties

Create or update your user-level Gradle properties file (never commit this file):

  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.gradle\gradle.properties
  • macOS/Linux: ~/.gradle/gradle.properties
# Sonatype OSSRH (Maven Central)
ossrhUsername=$OSSRH_USERNAME
ossrhPassword=$OSSRH_PASSWORD

# GPG signing
signing.keyId=$LAST_8_DIGITS_OF_GPG_KEY
signing.password=$GPG_PASSPHRASE
signing.secretKeyRingFile=$HOME/.gnupg/secring.gpg

Replace each $... placeholder with the real value. The signing.keyId is the last 8 digits shown by gpg -K.

3. Chocolatey API key

Set the CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY environment variable before running chocoPush:

# Windows (PowerShell)
$env:CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY = "your-api-key"

# macOS/Linux
export CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Get the API key at community.chocolatey.org → Account → API Key.

4. GitHub secrets

For Option A (GitHub Actions), configure these secrets once at github.com/robo-code/robocode → Settings → Secrets → Actions:

Secret Value
SIGNING_KEY GPG private key (full ASCII-armored block, with real newlines)
SIGNING_PASSWORD GPG key passphrase
OSSRH_USERNAME Sonatype OSSRH username
OSSRH_PASSWORD Sonatype OSSRH password
CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY Chocolatey Community Repository API key

6. GitHub CLI

Required for GitHub Release creation. Authenticate once with:

gh auth login

7. Docker Hub

Log in to Docker Hub before running dockerPush:

docker login

8. SourceForge

SourceForge only accepts file uploads via SSH, and the release uses an SSH key without a passphrase for this:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N "" -C "robocode-release@sourceforge" -f ~/.ssh/sourceforge

Add the public key (~/.ssh/sourceforge.pub) at sourceforge.net/auth/shell_services. Then add these to ~/.gradle/gradle.properties:

sourceforgeUsername=$SOURCEFORGE_USERNAME
# Release API key from https://sourceforge.net/auth/preferences/, used to set the default download
sourceforgeReleaseApiKey=$SOURCEFORGE_RELEASE_API_KEY
# Optional, if the SSH key is not ~/.ssh/sourceforge
sourceforgeSshKey=$PATH_TO_PRIVATE_KEY

Release steps

Step 1 — Bump the version

Edit gradle.properties and update the version number:

version=1.10.3

Step 2 — Update the changelog

Edit versions.md — add a new section at the top with the version and date, and describe all changes and bugfixes included in this release.

Update the copyright year in all files, if this is the first release of the year:

./gradlew updateCopyrightYear

It sets the end year of the Robocode copyright notices (the YYYY in Copyright (c) 2001-YYYY) to the current year. The pre-flight checks of ./gradlew release and the release workflow on GitHub fail if a copyright notice does not end with the current year. Run ./gradlew checkCopyrightYear to check it.

Step 3 — Commit and tag

git add gradle.properties versions.md
git commit -m "Release version 1.10.3"
git tag v1.10.3
git push origin main

With the local release (Option A), push main but not the tag. ./gradlew release creates the tag on GitHub together with the GitHub Release, and the release workflow then sees that the release exists and skips publishing. If the tag is pushed first, the release workflow publishes the release too (Option B).

Step 4 — Build all artifacts

./gradlew build

This produces:

  • All module JARs
  • build/robocode-{version}-setup.jar (self-extracting installer)
  • Chocolatey package in robocode.installer/build/choco/

Gradle itself must run on Java 17 or newer (JAVA_HOME), but all modules are compiled with a Java 8 toolchain (languageVersion.set(JavaLanguageVersion.of(8)) in build.gradle.kts). This way, the setup JAR runs on Java 8 and newer. A JDK 8 must be installed, so Gradle can detect it; check with ./gradlew javaToolchains.

versions.md is included in the setup JAR, so set the release date in versions.md before building the release.

Step 5 — Publish to Maven Central

Stage and release in one step:

./gradlew publishAllPublicationsToSonatypeRepository closeAndReleaseSonatypeStagingRepository

Or stage first for manual review at oss.sonatype.org:

./gradlew publishAllPublicationsToSonatypeRepository

Then close and release from the Sonatype UI, or:

./gradlew closeAndReleaseSonatypeStagingRepository

Maven Central sync typically completes within 10 minutes; search index updates can take up to 2 hours. Verify at: https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/net/sf/robocode/robocode.api/{version}/

Step 6 — Publish to Chocolatey

Requires CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY environment variable (see Prerequisites above). Also requires choco CLI to be installed (Windows only).

./gradlew chocoPush

This runs chocoCopy → chocoBuild → chocoPush internally, packaging the setup JAR into a .nupkg and pushing it to https://push.chocolatey.org/.

Verify at: https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/robocode/{version}

Step 7 — Push Docker image (optional)

Only needed when the RoboRumble server image needs updating. Requires docker login.

./gradlew dockerPush

This tags and pushes zamboch/roborumble:{version} and zamboch/roborumble:latest to Docker Hub.

Step 8 — Create GitHub Release

./gradlew createGitHubRelease

This creates the release v{version} titled Robocode {version} with the section of the version in versions.md as release notes, and attaches build/robocode-{version}-setup.jar. The tag is created on GitHub from the HEAD commit, which must be pushed.

Step 9 — Publish to SourceForge

./gradlew updateSourceForgeVersion

This runs these steps in order, where each step only runs if the previous one succeeded:

  1. uploadToSourceForge: uploads the setup JAR and the section of the version in versions.md as README.md to sourceforge.net/projects/robocode/files/robocode/{version}/.
  2. setSourceForgeDefaultDownload: makes the setup JAR the default download for Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD. The download link in Robocode leads to this download.
  3. updateSourceForgeVersion: writes the version to htdocs/version/version.html. Installed versions of Robocode read this file to tell users about the new version, so it must be updated last.

Step 10 — Announce the release

./gradlew prepareBlogPost (part of ./gradlew release) converts the release notes to HTML in build/release/blog-post.html.

  1. Create a post on Blogger with build/release/blog-post.html.
  2. Create a post on SourceForge news with build/release/release-notes.md.

Troubleshooting

Signing fails: Confirm signing.keyId, signing.password, and signing.secretKeyRingFile are set in ~/.gradle/gradle.properties and that the key file exists at the specified path.

Sonatype staging rejected: Ensure the public GPG key is uploaded to keyserver.ubuntu.com and that all required POM fields (license, SCM, developer) are present.

chocoPush fails: Confirm CHOCOLATEY_API_KEY is set and that choco is installed and on PATH. Run choco --version to verify.

Maven Central sync slow: Normal sync is 10 min; allow up to 2 hours before raising an issue.