Yardmaster

Yardmaster is a release management tool for Flatcar Container Linux. It automates release orchestration across multiple channels (Alpha, Beta, Stable, LTS) and provides commands to prepare, validate, and tag releases.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• uv for environment and dependency management

Setup

# Install dependencies
make dev-install

# Copy and edit the config file
cp .yardmaster.yaml.sample .yardmaster.yaml
# Edit .yardmaster.yaml with your values

Required environment variables

The config template references these env vars:

• JENKINS_USER and JENKINS_TOKEN for Jenkins
• GPG_KEY_ID if GPG signing is enabled

Export them before running release commands.

Release workflow

# 1. Initialize release state from a GitHub issue
yardmaster release init https://github.com/flatcar/Flatcar/issues/1234

# 2. Check status
yardmaster status

# 3. Run pre-release steps (tagging, branching, Jenkins builds)
yardmaster release run --pre

# 4. Run post-release steps
yardmaster release run --post

# 5. Mark release as done
yardmaster release complete

Use --dry-run on any step to preview without making changes.

Useful options:

• --dry-run: show actions without executing them
• --skip-jenkins: skip triggering Jenkins builds
• --skip-issue-check: skip GitHub issue title verification
• --force: force tag creation if it already exists
• -v: verbose logging

Retag

Retag a channel mid-release:

yardmaster retag alpha

Status

View configured channels, planned releases, and release state:

yardmaster status
yardmaster status --show-sdk
yardmaster status --json

SDK

Determine SDK versions for upcoming releases:

yardmaster sdk determine alpha:3800.0.0

Jenkins

Trigger a Jenkins PR build:

yardmaster jenkins pr-build --dry-run flatcar scripts 1234

Development

make dev-install   # install dev dependencies
make test          # run tests
make lint          # lint
make format        # auto-format
make type-check    # mypy
make check         # all of the above
make fix           # auto-fix formatting + lint
make all           # fix + check + build
make clean         # remove build artifacts
make help          # list all targets

Notes

• Default config path: .yardmaster.yaml
• Sample config: .yardmaster.yaml.sample
• Workspace default: ~/.yardmaster/workspace
• Logs default: ~/.yardmaster/yardmaster.log

Troubleshooting

If you see Config file not found, copy the sample config:

cp .yardmaster.yaml.sample .yardmaster.yaml

Then edit it with your values.

Configuration

Yardmaster looks for .yardmaster.yaml in the current directory by default. You can override this with:

• YARDMASTER_CONFIG environment variable:

  export YARDMASTER_CONFIG=~/my-project/.yardmaster.yaml
  yardmaster status

• -c flag (takes precedence over the env var):

  yardmaster -c /path/to/config.yaml status