Release Automation

[danehans]

The current release process is manual and error-prone. To automate this process, the following topics should be addressed:

• Define repo conventions to support automating the release, e.g. commit messages, changelog, version file, etc. Follow Conventional Commits for Commit Messages #289 tracks the need to establish commit message conventions to support release notes automation.
• Create or use a tool (script, go code, etc.) to automate the steps of the release process. After a quick search for potential tools, release-please is an interesting option that also provides a GitHub action.
• Audit the current release process for best practices and potential optimizations.
• Evaluate whether surfacing the release process in a GitHub issue template is the best option instead of RELEASE.md, the web docs, or other mechanisms (xref).

[danehans]

cc: @linsun @dhawton

[danehans]

#291 adds initial release automation.