- i18n_stable arugment is wrong, needs to be a branch
- cmdline invocation is wrong, needs kexi once, not two times
- none of this matters if your metadata aren't set to actually extract 'stable' translations from git branch xyz as then they simply won't exist in svn

Thanks Harald, this helps already. 

Now after changing i18n_stable to 3.0 I am getting:

tarme.rb --version 3.0.1 --origin stable --from-config kexi
INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release: Getting source (git - file:///home/jarek/dev/src/kexi30 [3.0])
reaseme/lib/releaseme/git.rb:47:in `get': undefined method `empty?' for 3.0:Float (NoMethodError)
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/lib/releaseme/source.rb:47:in `rescue in get'
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/lib/releaseme/source.rb:45:in `get'
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/lib/releaseme/release.rb:82:in `get'
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/tarme.rb:93:in `block in <main>'
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/tarme.rb:85:in `each'
        from /home/jarek/dev/src/releaseme/tarme.rb:85:in `<main>'

Is this expected response and how to understand it?
Thanks for any hint.

> none of this matters if your metadata aren't set to actually extract 'stable' translations from git branch xyz as then they simply won't exist in svn

Can I direct the tool to a local dir so it fetches translations from a local dir?

Just wanted to share that releaseme master version behaves like before: it does not create po files:

releaseme/tarme.rb --version 3.0.2 --origin stable --from-config kexi

INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release: Getting CI states.
INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release: Getting source (git - file:///home/jarek/dev/src/kexi30 [3.0])                                                 
INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release:  Getting translations...                                                                                       
INFO -- ReleaseMe::L10n: Downloading translations for kexi-3.0.2                                                                           
WARN -- ReleaseMe::L10n: !!! No translations found at SVN path $lang/messages/calligra !!!
WARN -- ReleaseMe::L10n: Looked for templates: ["kexi.po", "keximigrate_mdb.po", "keximigrate_mysql.po", "keximigrate_odb.po", "keximigrate_postgresql.po", "keximigrate_spreadsheet.po", "keximigrate_sybase.po", "keximigrate_tsv.po", "keximigrate_xbase.po", "kexiforms_mapwidgetplugin.po", "kexiforms_webbrowserwidgetplugin.po"]
INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release:  Getting documentation...
INFO -- ReleaseMe::DocumentationL10n: Downloading documentations for kexi-3.0.2

gpg: enabled debug flags: memstat

You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Jarosław Staniek <staniek@kde.org>"
2048-bit RSA key, ID 1B6524DB, created 2014-12-30

random usage: poolsize=600 mixed=4 polls=0/2 added=16/992
              outmix=2 getlvl1=1/8 getlvl2=0/0
secmem usage: 1400/32768 bytes in 3 blocks
################################################################################
Tarball Done!
---

My kexi.yml:

identifier: kexi
vcs:
    type: Git
    repository: file:///home/jarek/dev/src/kexi30
i18n_trunk: '3.0'
i18n_stable: '3.0'
i18n_path: calligra

Also please note the projects/RELEASE.md specifies example such as 

i18n_trunk: master

but it should be

i18n_trunk: 'master'

(In reply to Jarosław Staniek from comment #4)
> Also please note the projects/RELEASE.md specifies example such as 
> 
> i18n_trunk: master
> 
> but it should be
> 
> i18n_trunk: 'master'

http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html#id2788859

(In reply to Jarosław Staniek from comment #3)
> Just wanted to share that releaseme master version behaves like before: it
> does not create po files:
> 
> releaseme/tarme.rb --version 3.0.2 --origin stable --from-config kexi
> 
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release: Getting CI states.
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release: Getting source (git -
> file:///home/jarek/dev/src/kexi30 [3.0])                                    
> 
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release:  Getting translations...                        
> 
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::L10n: Downloading translations for kexi-3.0.2            
> 
> WARN -- ReleaseMe::L10n: !!! No translations found at SVN path
> $lang/messages/calligra !!!
> WARN -- ReleaseMe::L10n: Looked for templates: ["kexi.po",
> "keximigrate_mdb.po", "keximigrate_mysql.po", "keximigrate_odb.po",
> "keximigrate_postgresql.po", "keximigrate_spreadsheet.po",
> "keximigrate_sybase.po", "keximigrate_tsv.po", "keximigrate_xbase.po",
> "kexiforms_mapwidgetplugin.po", "kexiforms_webbrowserwidgetplugin.po"]
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::Release:  Getting documentation...
> INFO -- ReleaseMe::DocumentationL10n: Downloading documentations for
> kexi-3.0.2
> 
> gpg: enabled debug flags: memstat
> 
> You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
> user: "Jarosław Staniek <staniek@kde.org>"
> 2048-bit RSA key, ID 1B6524DB, created 2014-12-30
> 
> random usage: poolsize=600 mixed=4 polls=0/2 added=16/992
>               outmix=2 getlvl1=1/8 getlvl2=0/0
> secmem usage: 1400/32768 bytes in 3 blocks
> #############################################################################
> ###
> Tarball Done!
> ---
> 
> My kexi.yml:
> 
> identifier: kexi
> vcs:
>     type: Git
>     repository: file:///home/jarek/dev/src/kexi30
> i18n_trunk: '3.0'
> i18n_stable: '3.0'
> i18n_path: calligra

Stop using manual configs, if you need a manual config you are doing it wrong.

Your i18n settings are again not what they should be https://phabricator.kde.org/source/sysadmin-repo-metadata/browse/master/projects/calligra/kexi/i18n.json which is why there are no translations as kexi literally has no stable branch right now.

Subscribe to the release-team mailing list and ask for help on understanding how a proper release process works and how KDE's i18n setup works. None of your problems you have had so far have been with releaseme but understanding how releasing software in KDE works.

Thanks for the tips and offering me to register there Harald. In my opinion lack of clarity in the first place come from the fact that one group of KDE devs suggest releaseme and another create_tarballs_kf5 even when I already invested many days into releaseme. With expectation it is automatic as advertised. My goal was to have a single script command that prepares/tests the release.

Please note that if the tool contains support for manual config and even explains it in the docs I started to use it.

Stable branch of Kexi is 3.0 for many months.

I hope things are sorted as soon as the software is marked as 'stable' (even while CI stopped to support this case) and I can fully utilize automatism of releaseme. 
It's stable app depending on libraries that have no 'stable' stamp (because of no finished kdereview), that's it. I don't want to disappoint you but maybe this pretty realistic case is just not covered by the release process and thus there are barriers for new repositories (made from code developed since 2002).