Here is my checklist for releasing a crate. I will add to it as I go and notice I forgot to list some useful items.

Each release of the crate

• Go through the documentation and check that everything seems fine
• TODO: Should move all repos to release-plz / git-cliff and adjust then
• Run cargo semver-checks check-release -p [package] even though it does not catch everything
• Run cargo publish -p [package] --dry-run, check it builds fine
• Run cargo package -p [package] --list, check it contains only things that should be in
• Run cargo publish -p [package]
• Make a release on GitHub

First release of a crate

• Make sure you have a README.md file
• Check Cargo.toml contains all the useful metadata, in particular:
  • package.description: Short text about the package
  • package.repository: Link to the repository
  • package.documentation: "https://docs.rs/[package]", eg. "https://docs.rs/kine-core" (needs to be set!)
  • package.license: "MIT OR Apache-2.0", and add the applicable license files to the repository
  • package.keywords: Anything, up to 5, preferably from this list
  • package.categories: Anything, up to 5, from this list
  • package.publish: Set to false on crates in the workspace that must not be published
  • package.homepage: Link to the homepage if applicable
  • package.rust-version: MSRV (and make sure to have CI actually test this version)
• Add interesting lints:
  • #![warn(missing_docs)]
• Setup release-plz and git-cliff
• Setup dependabot
• Make sure all features will be properly documented as per this guide