Hand-polished release notes

[aldur]

Our releases include release notes that are generated from the changes merged, e.g.:

What's Changed

• chore: add more logging in StacksClient by @obycode in chore: add more logging in StacksClient #5505
• Feat/rpc endpoints to fetch data from key by @hugocaillard in Feat/rpc endpoints to fetch data from key #4997
• ...

New Contributors

• @lvyaoting made their first contribution in chore: remove redundant words in comment #5536

Full Changelog: 3.0.0.0.4...3.1.0.0.0

This looks good and provides a technical changelog, but might feel intimidating to casual readers. In addition, it lacks other contextual information (e.g., that this upgrade is required because it introduces a hard-fork).

The request here is to add a high-level, human made description at the beginning. For instance:

Stacks 3.1.0.0.0

Release 3.1.0.0.0 updates the coinbase schedule as approved in SIP-29.

⚠️ THIS IS A REQUIRED UPGRADE
The hard-fork will activate at Bitcoin block #875,000, estimated at Dec 16th, 2024 ~2000 UTC
Failing to upgrade before block #875,000 will require genesis sync

This update is compatible with existing 3.x.x.x.x chainstate directories.

Included changes

...

[wileyj]

If i get the intent, we basically want to include the mailing list announcement text to the top of the release notes (and keep the generated content unchanged), corect?

I can start doing this, and can update the docs to reflect this change if that's what you're suggesting.

[aldur]

I think that would be a good start, we can iterate on that later if we need to.

[wileyj]

this was done for latest release; working a template that can be used in the future.
note: this method does require more enforcement from PR reviewers that the changelog is being updated.

[aldur]

Thank you, leaving it here as a reference, this look a lot better!

This release introduces all necessary code changes for tenure-extend to happen and enables miners and signers to tenure-extend every 5 minutes (on average).
This release is compatible with chainstate directories from 3.x.x.x.x.

Miners and signers are encouraged to upgrade to this release.
Node operators may opt for this release since it also contains the 3.1.0.0.0 hard fork defined in SIP-029.

The version of stacks-signer compatible with this release is 3.1.0.0.1.0, available at: https://github.com/stacks-network/stacks-core/releases/tag/signer-3.1.0.0.1.0.

Added

• A miner may generate a tenure-extend, as allowed to, when confirmed by at least 70% of the signers.

Changed

• Signers confirm the miner’s request through a new timestamp included in their block responses, which allows the miner to refresh its budget in between Bitcoin blocks.
• Signers have a new config option tenure_idle_timeout_secs, which sets the amount of idle time a signer is configured to wait before accepting a tenure-extend transaction from a miner.

What's Changed

...