2.2Writing Release Notes from a QA Perspective

QA engineers bring a unique perspective to release notes because they know what was actually tested, what edge cases exist, what is still risky, and what known issues remain. This information is invaluable to both internal teams and external users.

Release Notes for Internal Engineering Teams

Internal release notes focus on what changed, what was tested, and what to watch for.

Template:

# Release Notes: v2.4.1 -- 2026-02-14

## Summary
Brief one-paragraph summary of what this release contains.

## Changes
### New Features
- **Multi-currency checkout** (SHOP-1234): Users can now pay in EUR, GBP, and JPY
  in addition to USD. Exchange rates are fetched from the Forex API at checkout time.

### Bug Fixes
- **Cart total rounding error** (SHOP-1189): Fixed an issue where carts with 3+
  items and a percentage discount could show a total 1 cent off due to floating
  point rounding. Root cause: rounding was applied per-item instead of to the total.

### Improvements
- **Search indexing performance** (SHOP-1201): Reduced product search reindexing
  time from 45 minutes to 12 minutes by switching to batch processing.

## What Was Tested
- Full regression suite (487 tests, all passing)
- Manual testing of multi-currency checkout across 5 currencies, 3 browsers
- Performance testing: checkout p95 latency unchanged at 1.2s
- Security: no new vulnerabilities detected in OWASP ZAP scan

## Known Issues
- **SHOP-1245**: Currency selector does not render correctly on Safari 16.
  Impact: cosmetic only; functionality works. Fix scheduled for v2.4.2.
- **SHOP-1250**: Exchange rate cache TTL is 1 hour; customers may see stale
  rates during high-volatility periods. Monitoring in place.

## Upgrade Notes
- Database migration required: adds `currency` column to `orders` table
  (migration is backward-compatible, no downtime required)
- New environment variable: `FOREX_API_KEY` must be set before deployment
- Redis cache version must be 7.0+ (was 6.x compatible previously)

## Rollback Plan
- If critical issues are discovered, revert to v2.4.0 using the standard
  rollback procedure. The database migration is backward-compatible.
- Rollback does not require downtime.

Release Notes for Customer-Facing Communication

Customer-facing release notes are shorter, non-technical, and focused on benefits.

Template:

# What's New in Version 2.4

## Pay in Your Currency
You can now check out in EUR, GBP, and JPY in addition to USD.
We display the converted total before you confirm your purchase.

## Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where cart totals could be off by 1 cent on
  discounted orders

## Known Issues
- The currency selector may not display correctly on Safari 16.
  We are working on a fix.

Key differences from internal notes:

Internal Notes	Customer-Facing Notes
Technical details (database changes, API changes)	Benefits and user impact
Ticket numbers and code references	Plain language, no jargon
Full testing coverage report	"We tested it" is implied
Rollback and deployment details	Not included
Known issues with technical detail	Known issues with user impact and workarounds