Remove stable branch?

[max-sixty]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

Currently https://github.com/pydata/xarray/blob/main/HOW_TO_RELEASE.md has a few steps around the stable branch

Describe the solution you'd like

In our dev call, we discussed the possibility of using main in place of stable and removing the stable branch

IIRC there's something we can do on RTD to make that replacement. (If anyone knows to hand, comment here; otherwise I can search for it).

Is there anything else we need to do apart from RTD?

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

No response

[mathause]

I think it's described here: https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/versions.html

we also create a stable version, tracking your most recent release

If I understand it correctly the "stable" docs is built from the release.

[keewis]

this should work pretty much automatically: you remove stable from the repository, and RTD will use the most recent release tag instead (it will filter out pre-release and other tags using the rules from PEP440). See this section: https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/versions.html#how-we-envision-versions-working

In any case, I'd volunteer to help debug RTD if any kind of error does come up during the migration.

[max-sixty]

stable has been removed!

FWIW we now have two branches: main and pr/jhamman/5759! Maybe we delete that too CC @jhamman :)