update readme regarding minor version bumpminor_version

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 74f2f3d330..1e1e4ad455 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -160,6 +160,16 @@ Whenever a change is checked in to `master`, the patch version of `chef` is bump
 2. Runs `rake bundle:install` to update the `Gemfile.lock` to include the new version.
 3. Pushes to `master` and submits a new build to Chef's Jenkins cluster.
 
+## Bumping the minor version of Chef
+
+After each "official" stable release we need to bump the minor version. To do this:
+
+1. Manually increment the minor version in the VERSION file that is in the root of this repo. and reset the patch version to 0. Assuming the current version is `12.10.57` you would edit `VERSION` to be `12.11.0`.
+2. Run `bundle exec rake version` which will copy the version to the respective `version.rb` files in chef and chef-config.
+3. Run `bundle exec rake bundle:install` to update the base Gemfile.lock
+
+Submit a PR with the changes made by the above.
+
 ## Component Versions
 
 Chef has two sorts of component: ruby components like `berkshelf` and `test-kitchen`, and binary components like `openssl` and even `ruby` itself.