release

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Guide for releases and changelog. Use when updating changelog or preparing releases. Triggers on: changelog, release, version bump.

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[CI and CD]

When & Why to Use This Skill

This Claude skill streamlines the software release lifecycle by automating versioning and changelog management. It provides a standardized framework for semantic versioning (SemVer) and ensures that CI/CD pipelines are correctly triggered through precise PR title prefixes and automated git tagging, reducing manual errors in the deployment process.

Use Cases

  • Automated Versioning: Automatically determine and apply major, minor, or patch version bumps in package.json based on standardized PR prefixes like feat:, fix:, or major:.
  • Changelog Standardization: Maintain a clean and organized CHANGELOG.md by automatically categorizing changes into Added, Fixed, or Breaking Changes sections during the release preparation.
  • CI/CD Trigger Optimization: Ensure seamless integration with automated workflows by validating that commit messages and tags meet the requirements for triggering build and deployment pipelines.
  • Release Error Troubleshooting: Quickly identify and resolve common release bottlenecks, such as 'tag already exists' errors caused by forgotten version bumps.
namerelease
descriptionGuide for releases and changelog. Triggers on: changelog, release, version.

Release Guide

Before Merging a Release PR

1. Bump Version in package.json

PR Title Prefix Version Bump
feat: or minor: Minor (0.X.0)
fix: or patch: Patch (0.0.X)
major: or type!: Major (X.0.0)

2. Update CHANGELOG.md

Add entry under ## [Unreleased]:

## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD

### Added/Fixed/Breaking Changes

- Description from PR title

Section headers by bump type:

  • major: or !: → ### Breaking Changes
  • feat: or minor: → ### Added
  • fix: or patch: → ### Fixed

3. PR Title Must Have Release Prefix

Examples:

feat: add batch retry for failed rows     → creates tag from package.json version
fix: correct token refresh timing         → creates tag from package.json version
major: redesign API endpoints             → creates tag from package.json version
feat!: change auth flow (breaking)        → creates tag from package.json version

After Merge

Workflow automatically:

  1. Detects release prefix in commit message
  2. Reads version from package.json
  3. Fails if tag already exists (forgot to bump version)
  4. Creates and pushes tag
  5. Tag triggers release.yml → build + GitHub release

Skipping Releases

PRs with non-release prefixes won't trigger tag creation:

  • docs: - documentation
  • refactor: - code restructure
  • test: - test changes
  • chore: - maintenance
  • ci: - CI changes

Errors

"Tag vX.Y.Z already exists" → You forgot to bump the version in package.json. Update the version in your PR and re-merge (or create a follow-up PR).

Manual Release (Emergency)

# Bump version in package.json
# Update CHANGELOG.md
git add package.json CHANGELOG.md
git commit -m "chore: release vX.Y.Z"
git tag vX.Y.Z
git push origin HEAD vX.Y.Z