Release 0.41

[lidel]

Note

Part of ongoing maintenance of key libraries and services ipshipyard/roadmaps#1 and ipshipyard/roadmaps#6

Meta

• Release owner: @lidel
• Release reviewer/backup: @gammazero
• Expected RC1 date: April 13th
• 🚢 Expected final release date: April 20th
• Release PR: Release v0.41.0 #11279
• Accompanying PR for improving the release process: n/a
• Internal Staging tests by Shipyard: TBD
• Changelog: https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/docs/changelogs/v0.41.md

Items In Scope

Required

• TBD
• webui with geoip with feat: add IPv6, reduce size, update to GeoLite2-City-CSV_20260220 ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-geoip#120 and feat(peers): updated ipfs-geoip and Peers screen optimizations ipfs-webui#2480 and feat: update webui to v4.12.0 #11221
• fix(provider): purge keystore datastore after reset #11198
• fix(cmd): use restrictive file permissions for exported keys #11246
• fix(rpc): CARv2 import over HTTP API #11253
• refactor: remove deprecated otelhttp.WithMetricAttributesFn #11257
• fix(filestore): respect Provide.Strategy #11243
• ci: update gateway-conformance to v0.13 #11262
• fix(mfs): respect Import config #11273
• fix(fuse): switch to hanwen/go-fuse #11272
• feat: go 1.26.2 #11275
• fix(fuse): accurate st_blocks and st_blksize #11280

Found during RC1

• fix: data race on AddrInfo.Addrs in queryPeer libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht#1244 (or fix(routing): prevent QueryEvent publish races libp2p/go-libp2p#3490, whichever ships a patch release first)

Nice To Have (Optional)

• feat: add built-in ipfs update command #11203
• feat(cmd): add 'ipfs cid inspect' command #11241
• fix(bitswap): ignore identity CIDs instead of killing connection boxo#1117
• HTTP Routing V1 provider records contain raw 0.0.0.0 listen addresses instead of resolved interface addresses #11213
• TBD
• Unified Provide Interface for Content Routers #10097 ?
• denylist: ?format=car does not skip directly blocked CIDs #10361
• MFS bug: ipfs files rm hanging #10842
• fix(cli): deduplicate dag stat blocks by multihash #11098
• Support consuming https://badbits.dwebops.pub/badbits.deny rainbow#126 (same applies to Kubo)
  • fix(gateway): prevent blocked CIDs in CAR responses #10948
    • ipfs blockservice is incompatible with sessions ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#34 (re-triage once kubo#10948 is done)
  • HTTPSubscriber: check with If-None-Match or If-Modified-Since ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#38
  • HTTPSubscriber: detect when list is not append-only ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#39
• Improved Reprovider.Strategy for entity DAGs (HAMT/UnixFS dirs, big files) #8676
  • provider: duplicated CIDs sent to provide queue boxo#901
• Move ipfs routing provide and reprovide into ipfs provide namespace #10865
• feat(client/rpc): add provide stat and dag import support #11069 / feat(client/rpc): auto-generate RPC GO client #11210
• [ ]

[lidel]

✅ Release Checklist (v0.41.0-rc1)

Release types: RC (Release Candidate)

1. Prepare Release Branch

• Fetch latest changes: git fetch origin master release
• Create branch release-vX.Y.Z (base from: master if Z=0 for new minor/major, release if Z>0 for patch)
• RC1 only: Switch to master branch and prepare for next release cycle:
  • Update version.go to vX.Y+1.0-dev (⚠️ double-check Y+1 is correct) (example PR)
  • Create ./docs/changelogs/vX.Y+1.md and add link in CHANGELOG.md
• Switch to release-vX.Y.Z branch and update version.go to vX.Y.Z(-rcN) (⚠️ double-check Y matches release) (example)
• Create draft PR: release-vX.Y.Z → release (example)
• Cherry-pick commits from master into release-vX.Y.Z: git cherry-pick -x <commit> (example)
  • ⚠️ NOTE: -x flag records original commit SHA for traceability and cleaner merge history
• Verify all CI checks on the PR are passing
• FINAL only: Replace Changelog and Contributors sections in release-vX.Y.Z with ./bin/mkreleaselog stdout (do NOT copy stderr)
• FINAL only: Merge PR (release-vX.Y.Z → release) using Create a merge commit
  • ⚠️ do NOT use Squash and merge nor Rebase and merge -- we want the releaser's GPG signature on the merge commit
  • ⚠️ do NOT delete the release-vX.Y.Z branch (needed for future patch releases and git history)

2. Tag & Publish

Create Tag

⚠️ POINT OF NO RETURN: Once pushed, tags trigger automatic Docker/NPM publishing and are irreversible!
If you're making a release for the first time, do pair programming and have the release reviewer verify all commands.

• RC: From release-vX.Y.Z branch: git tag -s vX.Y.Z-rcN -m 'Prerelease X.Y.Z-rcN'
• FINAL: After PR merge, from release branch: git tag -s vX.Y.Z -m 'Release X.Y.Z'
• ⚠️ Verify tag is signed and correct: git show vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
• Push tag: git push origin vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • ⚠️ do NOT use git push --tags (pushes all local tags, polluting the repo with noise)
• STOP: Wait for Docker build to complete before proceeding

Publish Artifacts

Parallelism: Docker and dist.ipfs.tech only depend on the pushed tag and can be started in parallel.
NPM and GitHub Release both depend on dist.ipfs.tech completing first.

• Docker: Verify docker-image CI passed and image is available on Docker Hub → tags
• dist.ipfs.tech: Publish to dist.ipfs.tech
  • Check out ipfs/distributions
  • Create branch: git checkout -b release-kubo-X.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • Verify .tool-versions golang matches Kubo's CI go-version: (update if needed)
  • Run: ./dist.sh add-version kubo vX.Y.Z(-rcN) (usage)
  • Create and merge PR (updates dists/kubo/versions, FINAL also updates dists/kubo/current - example)
  • Wait for CI workflow triggered by merge
  • Verify release on dist.ipfs.tech
• NPM: Publish to NPM
  • Manually dispatch Release to npm workflow if not auto-triggered
  • Verify release on NPM
• GitHub Release: Publish to GitHub
  • Create release (RC example, FINAL example)
  • Use tag vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • Link to release issue
  • RC: Link to changelog, check This is a pre-release
  • FINAL: Copy changelog content (without header), do NOT check pre-release
  • Run sync-release-assets workflow (requires dist.ipfs.tech)
  • Verify assets are attached to the GitHub release

3. Post-Release

Technical Tasks

• FINAL only: Merge release → master
  • Create branch merge-release-vX.Y.Z from release
  • Merge master to merge-release-vX.Y.Z first, and resolve conflict in version.go
    • ⚠️ NOTE: keep the -dev version from master in version.go, discard version from release
  • Create and merge PR from merge-release-vX.Y.Z to master using Create a merge commit
    • ⚠️ do NOT use Squash and merge nor Rebase and merge -- only Create a merge commit preserves commit history and audit trail of what was merged where
• Update ipshipyard/waterworks-infra
  • Update Kubo staging environment (Running Kubo tests on staging)
    • RC: Test last release against current RC
    • FINAL: Latest release on both boxes
  • FINAL: Update collab cluster boxes to the tagged release
  • FINAL: Update libp2p bootstrappers to the tagged release
• Update ipfs-desktop
  • Create PR updating kubo version in package.json and package-lock.json
  • Smoke test with IPFS Companion Browser Extension against the PR build
  • FINAL: Merge PR and ship new ipfs-desktop release
• FINAL only: Update docs.ipfs.tech: run update-on-new-ipfs-tag.yml workflow and merge the PR

Promotion

• Create IPFS Discourse topic (RC example, FINAL example)
  • Title: Kubo vX.Y.Z(-rcN) is out!, tag: kubo
  • Use title as heading (##) in description
  • Include: GitHub release link, IPNS binaries, docker pull command, release notes
  • Pin topic globally (make banner if no existing banner)
• Verify bot posted to #ipfs-chatter (Discord) or #ipfs-chatter:ipfs.io (Matrix)
• RC only: Comment on release issue mentioning early testers (example)
• FINAL only: Comment on release issue with link (example)
• FINAL only: Create blog.ipfs.tech entry (example)
• FINAL non-PATCH: (optional) Post on social media (bsky, x.com, Reddit)

Final Steps

• FINAL non-PATCH: Create dependency update PR
  • Review direct dependencies from root go.mod (⚠️ do NOT run go get -u as it will upgrade indirect dependencies which may cause problems)
  • Run make mod_tidy
  • Create PR with go.mod and go.sum updates
  • Add PR to next release milestone
• FINAL non-PATCH: Create next release issue (example)
• FINAL only: Close release issue

[lidel]

Kubo v0.41.0-rc1 is out, pinging early testers:

• Charity Engine (@Rytiss, @tristanolive)
• Fission (@bmann)
• Infura (@MichaelMure)
• OrbitDB (@haydenyoung)
• Pinata (@obo20)
• Shipyard (@cewood, @ns4plabs)
• Siderus (@koalalorenzo)
• Textile (@sanderpick)
• @RubenKelevra

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