diff --git a/docs/releases.md b/docs/releases.md
index fb75ed8e7..3e2c0abfb 100644
--- a/docs/releases.md
+++ b/docs/releases.md
@@ -1,39 +1,157 @@
-# go-ipfs releases
+# `go-ipfs` Release Flow
-## Release Schedule
-go-ipfs is on a six week release schedule. Following a release, there will be
-five weeks for code of any type (features, bugfixes, etc) to be added. After
-the five weeks is up, a release candidate is tagged and only important bugfixes
-will be allowed up to release day.
+## Table of Contents
-## Release Candidate Checklist
-- [ ] CHANGELOG.md has been updated
- - use `./bin/mkreleaselog` to generate a nice starter list
+- [Release Philosophy](#release-philosophy)
+- [Release Flow](#release-flow)
+- [Performing a Release](#performing-a-release)
+- [Release Version Numbers (aka semver)](#release-version-numbers-aka-semver)
+
+## Release Philosophy
+
+`go-ipfs` aims to have release every six weeks, two releases per quarter. During these 6 week releases, we go through 4 different stages of Release Candidates (RC) that gives us the opportunity to test the new version against our test envinronments, production envinronments, IPFS apps (e.g. Desktop and WebUI) and with our close partners that have IPFS running in Production, by leveraging their own test infrastructure.
+
+We might expand the six week release schedule in case of:
+- No new updates to be added
+- In case of a large community event that takes the core team availability away (e.g. IPFS Conf, Dev Meetings, IPFS Camp, etc)
+
+## Release Flow
+
+`go-ipfs` releases come in 4 stages:
+
+- **Release Stage 1 - Internal testing** - Test the Release against our testing infrastructure, including interoperability, integration, test lab, multiple runtimes and the apps we've built (WebUI, Desktop, NPM on IPFS, HTTP Client Libraries). The intent is to make this stage fully automated (and somewhat is already), until then, we manually check a list and ensure that all tests have been run
+- **Release Stage 2 - Invite IPFS partners to test** - Reach out to our partners (i.e. projects that have volunteered to support `go-ipfs` by using their own test infrastructure and tell us the results)
+- **Release Stage 3 - Announce to the broader community** - Communicate to the community that a new Release Candidate is ready and that everyone is welcome to test it with us
+- **Release Stage 4 - Complete the Release** - Finalize the release, start the next release.
+
+The Release Stages are not linked to Release Candidate numbers, in fact, there can be multiple release candidate per stages as we catch bugs and improve the release itself.
+
+
+
+ 
+
+
+
+## Performing a Release
+
+The first step is for the `Lead Maintainer` for `go-ipfs` to open an issue with Title `go-ipfs Release` and a c&p of the following template:
+
+```
+>
+
+# 🗺 What's left for release
+
+
+
+# 🔦 Highlights
+
+
+
+# 🏗 API Changes
+
+
+
+# ✅ Release Checklist
+
+For each RC published in each stage:
- [ ] version string in `version.go` has been updated
- [ ] tag commit with vX.Y.Z-rcN
-## Pre-Release Checklist
-- [ ] before release, tag 'release candidate' for users to test against
- - if bugs are found/fixed, do another release candidate
-- [ ] all tests pass (no exceptions)
-- [ ] run interop tests https://github.com/ipfs/interop#test-with-a-non-yet-released-version-of-go-ipfs
-- [ ] webui works (for most definitions of 'works') - Test the multiple pages and verify that no visible errors are shown.
+### Release Stage 1 - Internal testing
+
+When Release Stage 1, there is a features freeze for the release branch.
+
- [ ] CHANGELOG.md has been updated
- use `./bin/mkreleaselog` to generate a nice starter list
-- [ ] version string in `repo/version.go` has been updated
-- [ ] tag commit with vX.Y.Z
-- [ ] update release branch to point to release commit (`git merge vX.Y.Z`).
-- [ ] publish dist.ipfs.io
-- [ ] publish next version to https://github.com/ipfs/npm-go-ipfs
+- [ ] Automated Testing - Ensure that all tests are passing, this includes:
+ - [ ] unit
+ - [ ] sharness
+ - [ ] [interop](https://github.com/ipfs/interop#test-with-a-non-yet-released-version-of-go-ipfs)
+- [ ] Network Testing:
+ - [ ] test lab things
+- [ ] Infrastructure Testing:
+ - [ ] Deploy new version to a subset of Bootstrappers
+ - [ ] Deploy new version to a subset of Gateways
+ - [ ] Deploy new version to a subset of Preload nodes
+ - [ ] Collect metrics every day. Work with the Infrastructure team to learn of any hiccup
+- [ ] IPFS HTTP Client Libraries Testing:
+ - [ ] [JS](http://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs-http-client)
+ - [ ] [Go](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs-api)
+- [ ] IPFS Application Testing - Run the tests of the following applications:
+ - [ ] WebUI
+ - [ ] IPFS Desktop
+ - [ ] IPFS Companion
+ - [ ] NPM on IPFS
-## Post-Release
-- [ ] Bump version string in `repo/version.go` to `vX.Y.Z-dev`
-- [ ] Upload the final release to the github releases page: https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/releases
-- Communication
- - [ ] Create the release issue
- - [ ] Announcements (both pre-release and post-release)
- - [ ] Twitter
- - [ ] IRC
- - [ ] Reddit
- - [ ] Blog post (at minimum, paste the changelog. optionally add context and thank contributors.)
-- [ ] Update HTTP-API Documentation on the Website using https://github.com/ipfs/http-api-docs
+### Release Stage 2 - Invite IPFS partners to test
+
+- [ ] Reach out to the following IPFS partners for testing this release (check when no more problems have been reported):
+ - [ ] Infura
+ - [ ] Textila
+ - [ ] Open Bazaar
+ - [ ] QRI
+- [ ] Run tests available in the following repos with the latest RC (check when all tests pass):
+ - [ ] [orbit-db](https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-db)
+
+PSA: If you are a heavy user of `go-ipfs`, have developed a solid test infrastructure for your application and would love to help us would like to help us test `go-ipfs` release candidates, reach out to go-ipfs-wg@ipfs.io.
+
+### Release Stage 3 - Announce to the broader community
+
+- [ ] Documentation
+ - [ ] Ensure that CHANGELOG.md is up to date
+ - [ ] Ensure that README.md is up to date
+ - [ ] Ensure that all the examples we have produced for go-ipfs run without problems
+ - [ ] Update HTTP-API Documentation on the Website using https://github.com/ipfs/http-api-docs
+- [ ] Invite the community through (link to the release issue):
+ - [ ] [discuss.ipfs.io](https://discuss.ipfs.io/c/announcements)
+ - [ ] Twitter
+
+### Release Stage 4 - Complete the Release
+
+- Take a snapshot between of everyone that has contributed to this release (including its subdeps in IPFS, libp2p, IPLD and multiformats) using [`name-your-contributors`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/name-your-contributors). Generate a nice markdown list with [this script](https://gist.github.com/alanshaw/5a2d9465c5a05b201d949551bdb1fcc3). Add it to this issue.
+
+- [ ] Final preparation
+ - [ ] Verify that version string in `repo/version.go` has been updated
+ - [ ] tag commit with vX.Y.Z
+ - [ ] update release branch to point to release commit (`git merge vX.Y.Z`).
+ - [ ] publish dist.ipfs.io
+ - [ ] publish next version to https://github.com/ipfs/npm-go-ipfs
+- [ ] Publish a Release Blog post (at minimum, a c&p of this release issue with all the highlights, API changes, link to changelog and thank yous)
+- [ ] Broadcasting (link to blog post)
+ - [ ] Twitter
+ - [ ] IRC
+ - [ ] Reddit
+ - [ ] [discuss.ipfs.io](https://discuss.ipfs.io/c/announcements)
+ - [ ] Announce it on the [IPFS Users mlist](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ipfs-users)
+
+# ❤️ Huge thank you to everyone that made this release possible
+
+In alphabetical order, here are all the humans that contributed to the release:
+
+-