I think we're very close to 2.19.0 stable: 2.18.0 was almost 2 months ago, and, based on the milestones (https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/milestone/60, https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/milestone/62), there doesn't seem to be any new critical regressions that we need to fix, only existing ones, and new features. Thus, I'm hoping the 2.19.0rc4 prepped above is the last one, and I can release 2.19.0 at the end of this week. To do this, I need help: 1. Review of the rc4 release prep: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/20376 ✅ 2. Reviews of the release notes: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/20310 3. Testing: https://pantsbuild.slack.com/archives/C046T6T9U/p1704329861351399 4. Someone to start a blog post draft (I can do it too, but I'd love to share the load 😄 ), feel free to use the content in 20310 as inspiration (It'd be nifty if we had the new doc site ready in time, but there's a few blockers for that: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pantsbuild.org/milestone/1. There's lots of good stuff in 2.19.0 that would be great to get into people's hands.)

To whoever is doing the blog, please draft it in Markdown so we can easily port it to the new blog site 🙂

In addition to the mechanics of preparing the 2.19.0 stable release, finalising it means we're at the pointy end of the 2.19.x branch: • I would suggest/request no more merging cherry-picks unless they're critical • please raise any here for discussion so we don't accidentally put out 2.19.0 missing something importing (or including something unintended) Also, a release blog post is still pending! Anyone can do this, no need to be a "Contributor" or "Maintainer" 😄 Previously, we generally do it via a google doc with markdown syntax in for headings etc. As an example here's the one we used for 2.18.0: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17eSTga1c0ECb0qatvfA3mUXoqeBVol6YuJsjzzQLUho/edit?usp=sharing (and the final product)

(Actually, it'd be even better if the 2.19 blog post was just drafted as a PR to https://github.com/pantsbuild/pantsbuild.org/tree/main/blog) That means we'd feed two birds with one scone 🙂

Given it's an "long term" existing bug, I think don't think it makes the cut for 2.19.0. Definitely fine for 2.19.1, though.

Ignore me: Huon is the all-seeing-eye https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/20393#pullrequestreview-1816743652