# Release notes and the release party

> How the monthly release notes come together, how you can help make them better, and what the release party is.

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

Every release comes with release notes: a blog post on [home-assistant.io](https://www.home-assistant.io/) that explains what is new, what changed, and what people need to do. For many people, it is the only thing they read about a release. Getting it right matters.

## What is in the release notes

The release notes follow the same structure every month:

- **An introduction** with the highlights, and the recording of the release party at the top.
- **The big features**, each with its own section, screenshots, and often a short video.
- **Integrations**: new integrations, noteworthy improvements, integrations that reached a new level of the [quality scale](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/quality-scale/), integrations that can now be set up from the UI, and integrations that were removed.
- **Other noteworthy changes**: smaller features worth knowing about.
- **Patch releases**: added during the month, with the fixes of each patch release.
- **Need help? Join the community**: where to get help, and where to report issues.
- **Backward-incompatible changes**: every [backward-incompatible change](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/backward-incompatible-changes/), grouped per integration, and a list of developer blog posts that matter for custom integration developers.
- **All changes**: a link to the full changelog.

The full changelog lists every merged pull request of the release, with its author. It is generated by the release team with the [release helper scripts](https://github.com/home-assistant/hass-release).

## Who writes them

The release notes are written by the release team, with help from others. The people who helped are thanked by name at the top of every release post. Writing the release notes is not a public free-for-all, but you can help in several ways.

## How you can help

- **Write a good pull request description.** The release notes authors read pull requests to understand a feature. A clear description, with a screenshot of what changed, saves them a lot of time.
- **Write a good backward-incompatible change section.** It is copied into the release notes almost as is. See [Document a backward-incompatible change](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/releases/guides/backward-incompatible-changes/).
- **Get your documentation in on time.** A feature without documentation is hard to write about, and hard to link to. Open the documentation pull request against the `next` branch of home-assistant.io, together with the code. See [Writing docs](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/writing/).
- **Review the beta release notes.** During the beta week, the release notes are already published at [rc.home-assistant.io](https://rc.home-assistant.io/latest-release-notes/). Spot a mistake, a broken link, or something unclear? Report it in the [**#beta**](https://discord.com/channels/330944238910963714/427516175237382144) channel on [Discord](https://www.home-assistant.io/join-chat/), or open an issue or pull request on [home-assistant.io](https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io).

## The release party

On release day, there is a release party: a live stream on the [Home Assistant YouTube channel](https://youtube.com/@home_assistant). The Home Assistant and Community teams of the [Open Home Foundation](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/open-home-foundation/) put it together. They walk through what is new and show the features in action. Sometimes guests join to talk about something they worked on.

The recording is embedded at the top of the release notes afterward, so you can watch it later.

## Patch release notes

Patch releases do not get their own blog post. Their changes are added to the release notes of that month, under **Patch releases**, with the date and the list of fixes.