<h2>Introduction to releases</h2>
At some point during while developing your module, theme, or translation, you will probably declare the project formally "done enough" and choose to contribute it to the community, so that they can download it from the <a href="http://drupal.org/project">Download section</a> for their given Drupal version. This process is called creating a <strong>release</strong> of your project.
There are two steps to creating a release:
<ul>
<li><a href="/node/17570">Branching and/or tagging the module in CVS</a>, which indicates that the project is compatible with a certain Drupal version, such as 4.7.x.</li>
<li>Creating a <strong>release node</strong> at Drupal.org, which generates a "tarball" that users can see in the module download listing.</li>
</ul>
This document covers the second of these steps.
<h2>Creating a release node for your project</h2>
<ol>
<li>Navigate to your project's page; for example, http://drupal.org/project/signup.</a>
<li>Under the <strong>Releases</strong> heading, click <strong>Add new release</strong>. Note that you will only see this link if you are on the list of people with <strong>CVS Access</strong> to the project.</li>
<li>Select the <strong>CVS identifier</strong> you want to use from the list of available branches and tags that aren't yet associated with a release.</li>
<li>If you chose to create a release from <strong>HEAD</strong>, you'll see an intermediary page which prompts you to indicate the <strong>Drupal version</strong> that this release series is compatible with.</li>
<li>Finally, fill in the remaining details of your release, such as a <strong>Description</strong> and click <strong>Submit</strong>. Note that there are certain fields on this form that are calculated automatically and cannot be changed.</li>
<li>You will receive a message to inform you that your release has been submitted. The new release will initially be unpublished; only after the packaging scripts run (twice per day) will it become published, at which time users will be able to download a tarball of your module, theme, or translation.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Things to watch</h2>
<ul>
<li>You will only be able to create releases for projects if you are on the list of people with "CVS access" to that project.</li>
<li>Projects are only packaged once or twice a day, so it might take up to 24 hours for new releases to become available on the website or for updates to propagate to the downloads.</li>
<li>If you found a bug that needs to be fixed in several releases of your project, make sure to commit the fix to the different branches unless you are no longer maintaining certain releases of your project.</li>
<li>You may only create releases for modules, themes, theme engines, and translations. Personal sandboxes, items in the documentation directory of the contributions repository, etc. won't be packaged.</li>
</ul>