Implementation:Apache Kafka Git Branch And Tag Management

Knowledge Sources	Apache Kafka
Domains	Release_Engineering, Version_Control
Last Updated	2026-02-09 12:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete tool for creating release branches, tags, and updating version files provided by the Kafka release module.

Description

The git and textfiles modules in the Kafka release toolkit provide functions for branch creation, tag creation, and file-based text replacement. The git module wraps git CLI commands via subprocess, while textfiles handles version bumps by replacing patterns in configuration files like gradle.properties.

Usage

Import these functions when automating the branch and version management phase of a Kafka release. Call create_branch to create the release branch, textfiles.replace to bump versions, and create_tag to mark the release point.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: Apache Kafka
• File: release/git.py (L96-121), release/textfiles.py (L55-73)

Signature

def create_branch(branch, ref, **kwargs):
    """Creates git branch 'branch' to track 'ref'."""

def create_tag(tag, **kwargs):
    """Creates annotated git tag with the tag name as message."""

def replace(path, pattern, replacement, **kwargs):
    """
    Replace all occurrences of a text pattern in a text file.
    If regex=True in kwargs, uses re.sub for regex replacement.
    Otherwise, replaces lines starting with the pattern.
    """

Import

from git import create_branch, create_tag
from textfiles import replace

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
branch	str	Yes	Name of the release branch to create
ref	str	Yes	Git ref to branch from (e.g., trunk)
tag	str	Yes	Annotated tag name (e.g., 3.7.0-rc0)
path	str	Yes (for replace)	File path to modify
pattern	str	Yes (for replace)	Text pattern to find
replacement	str	Yes (for replace)	Replacement text
regex	bool	No	Use regex matching (default False)

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
create_branch	None	New git branch created locally
create_tag	None	Annotated git tag created
replace	None	File modified in-place with replacements applied

Usage Examples

Create Release Branch and Bump Version

from git import create_branch, create_tag
from textfiles import replace

# Create release branch from trunk
create_branch("3.7", "trunk")

# Bump version in gradle.properties
replace("gradle.properties", "version=", "version=3.7.0")

# Create release candidate tag
create_tag("3.7.0-rc0")

Related Pages

Implements Principle

• Principle:Apache_Kafka_Release_Branch_Preparation
• Environment:Apache_Kafka_Release_Toolchain_Environment