I walked through the release procedure, because it seems like lots of people are enthused / have ideas about automation in their heads, but maybe not the same ideas. I identified 3 potential pieces of automation that give smoother releases, sooner rather than later: 1. 'start release': workflow to update changelog, contributors etc. 2. 'tag release': workflow to cherry-pick ^ (if required) and add a git tag 3. augmenting existing release workflow: update docs site, publish PEX https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/discussions/19279 has the details/analysis. (I am filled with hubris: I've never run a release. 😅)

Thanks for writing this up! I will follow up on the discussion.