# Release guides

> How to help a release come together, task by task. From the release notes to getting a fix into a patch release.

Source: https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/

Each guide covers one task around a release. Most of them matter to anyone who opens a pull request, not only to the people who run the release.

- [Release notes and the release party](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/release-notes/): how the monthly release notes come together, and how you can help.
- [Document a backward-incompatible change](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/backward-incompatible-changes/): tell users what breaks, how to fix it, and why.
- [Deprecate something](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/deprecations/): the deprecation policy, and how deprecations reach the release notes.
- [Get a fix into a patch release](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/patch-releases/): how a bug fix reaches the beta and the patch releases.