Release 8.0.0 - November 2024

[keertk]

Status of Bazel 8.0.0

• Expected first release candidate date: 2024-10-07
• Expected final release candidate date: 2024-11-22
• Expected release date: 2024-12-02
• List of release blockers

To report a release-blocking bug, please add a comment with the text @bazel-io flag 8.0.0 to the issue. A release manager will triage it and add it to the milestone.

To cherry-pick a mainline commit into 8.0.0, simply send a PR against the release-8.0.0 branch.

Task list:

• Pick release baseline: d028522
• Create release candidate: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/8.0.0rc1
• Check downstream projects
• Create draft release announcement
• Send the release announcement PR for review
• Push the release and notify package maintainers
• Update the documentation
• Push the blog post
• Update the release page

[iancha1992]

Bazel 8.0.0rc1 is now available for those that want to try it out.

You can download it from here: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/8.0.0rc1
If you're using Bazelisk, you can point to this RC by setting USE_BAZEL_VERSION=8.0.0rc1.

Please test it out and report any issues here as soon as possible.
An early draft of the release notes can be found here.

Thanks!

[criemen]

FWIW the --incompatible_disallow_empty_glob flag flip in 8.0 break rules_dotnet, reported here: bazel-contrib/rules_dotnet#458
I suspect the downstream test suite doesn't contain a real-world project that uses rules_dotnet.

[brandjon]

I created three blocking issues, #23855, #23856, and #23857, but only the last one was automatically added to the release blocking hotlist. I'm guessing this might be because the first two contained the @bazel-io flag 8.0.0 as part of the initial comment and not as a separate post, or because there wasn't enough newline separation from other content in the comment.

Can we get those two issues added to the blocker list, and possibly update the template for the next release-tracking issue to clarify the syntax?

Edit: Tried adding the magic fork tag myself to see if that adds them.

[iancha1992]

@brandjon You've added them :)

[iancha1992]

Bazel 8.0.0rc2 is now available for those that want to try it out.

You can download it from here: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/8.0.0rc2
If you're using Bazelisk, you can point to this RC by setting USE_BAZEL_VERSION=8.0.0rc2.

Please test it out and report any issues here as soon as possible.
An early draft of the release notes can be found here.

Thanks!

[Wyverald]

Status update, since people have been asking: we have been very busy trying to get rc3 out, and we're almost there! Currently looking like it'll come out tomorrow (22 Nov). That means that the final release is likely to be early December, since it'll be Thanksgiving next Thursday.