VOL-4840 - Tracking ticket for release documentation.

conf.py
-------
  o Define more external link macros to shorten URLs.

Misc
----
  o Updated comments on version strings and misc items.

Change-Id: Ib4bc650e575bdc4b5c6a666c4147c8b93a41e797
diff --git a/howto/release/components/voltha-protos.rst b/howto/release/components/voltha-protos.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9de5270
--- /dev/null
+++ b/howto/release/components/voltha-protos.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+VOLTHA Components: voltha-protos
+================================
+
+Dependencies
+------------
+
+- google-api library version
+
+Validate
+--------
+
+- make lint
+- make test
+
+Versioning
+----------
+
+- Based on VERSION file contents in root directory of the repository.
+
+Release
+-------
+
+- Bump VERSION file to a non-dev semantic version.
+- See Validate above
+- Commit and approve to trigger a build