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+# Release Guidelines for the CaosDB MySQL Backend
+
+This document specifies release guidelines in addition to the generel release
+guidelines of the CaosDB Project
+([RELEASE_GUIDELINES.md](https://gitlab.com/caosdb/caosdb/blob/dev/RELEASE_GUIDELINES.md))
+
+## General Prerequisites
+
+* All tests are passing.
+* FEATURES.md is up-to-date and a public API is being declared in that document.
+* CHANGELOG.md is up-to-date.
+* DEPENDENCIES.md is up-to-date.
+
+## Steps
+
+1. Create a release branch from the dev branch. This prevents further changes
+   to the code base and a never ending release process. Naming: `release-<VERSION>`
+
+2. Check all general prerequisites.
+
+3. Prepare the [setup.py](./setup.py): Update the `MAJOR`, `MINOR`, `MICRO`, `PRE` variables and set `ISRELEASED` to `True`. Use the possibility to issue pre-release versions for testing.
+
+4. Merge the release branch into the master branch.
+
+5. Tag the latest commit of the master branch with `v<VERSION>`.
+
+6. Delete the release branch.
+
+7. Publish the release by executing `./release.sh` with uploads the caosdb
+   module to the Python Package Index [pypi.org](https://pypi.org).
+
+8. Merge the master branch back into the dev branch.