Release It! 🚀
🚀 Generic CLI tool to automate versioning and package publishing-related tasks:
- Bump version (in e.g.
package.json) - Git commit, tag, push
- Execute any (test or build) commands using hooks
- Create release at GitHub or GitLab
- Generate changelog
- Publish to npm
- Manage pre-releases
- Extend with plugins
- Release from any CI/CD environment
Use release-it for version management and publish to anywhere with its versatile configuration, a powerful plugin system, and hooks to execute any command you need to test, build, and/or publish your project.
Are you using release-it at work? Please consider sponsoring me!
Installation
Although release-it is a generic release tool, most projects use it for projects with npm packages. The recommended way to install release-it uses npm and adds some minimal configuration to get started:
npm init release-itAlternatively, install it manually, and add the release script to package.json:
npm install -D release-it{
"name": "my-package",
"version": "1.0.0",
"scripts": {
"release": "release-it"
},
"devDependencies": {
"release-it": "^16.1.0"
}
}Usage
Run release-it from the root of the project using either npm run or npx:
npm run release
npx release-itYou will be prompted to select the new version, and more prompts will follow based on your configuration.
Yarn
Using Yarn? Please see the npm section on Yarn.
Monorepos
Using a monorepo? Please see this monorepo recipe.
Global Installation
Per-project installation as shown above is recommended, but global installs are supported as well:
- From npm:
npm install -g release-it - From Homebrew:
brew install release-it
Containerized
Use Release It! - Containerized to run it in any environment as a standardized container without the need for a Node environment. Thanks Juan Carlos!
Videos, articles & examples
Here's a list of interesting external resources:
- Video: How to use GitHub Actions & Release-It to Easily Release Your Code
- Article: Monorepo Semantic Releases (repo)
Want to add yours to the list? Just open a pull request!
Configuration
Out of the box, release-it has sane defaults, and plenty of options to configure it. Most projects use a
.release-it.json file in the project root, or a release-it property in package.json.
Here's a quick example .release-it.json:
{
"git": {
"commitMessage": "chore: release v${version}"
},
"github": {
"release": true
}
}→ See Configuration for more details.
Interactive vs. CI mode
By default, release-it is interactive and allows you to confirm each task before execution:
By using the --ci option, the process is fully automated without prompts. The configured tasks will be executed as
demonstrated in the first animation above. In a Continuous Integration (CI) environment, this non-interactive mode is
activated automatically.
Use --only-version to use a prompt only to determine the version, and automate the rest.
Latest version
How does release-it determine the latest version?
- For projects with a
package.json, itsversionwill be used (see npm to skip this). - Otherwise, release-it uses the latest Git tag to determine which version should be released.
- As a last resort,
0.0.0will be used as the latest version.
Alternatively, a plugin can be used to override this (e.g. to manage a VERSION or composer.json file):
- @release-it/bumper to read from or bump the version in any file
- @release-it/conventional-changelog to get a recommended bump based on commit messages
- release-it-calver-plugin to use CalVer (Calendar Versioning)
Add the --release-version flag to print the next version without releasing anything.
Git
Git projects are supported well by release-it, automating the tasks to stage, commit, tag and push releases to any Git remote.
→ See Git for more details.
GitHub Releases
GitHub projects can have releases attached to Git tags, containing release notes and assets. There are two ways to add GitHub releases in your release-it flow:
- Automated (requires a
GITHUB_TOKEN) - Manual (using the GitHub web interface with pre-populated fields)
→ See GitHub Releases for more details.
GitLab Releases
GitLab projects can have releases attached to Git tags, containing release notes and assets. To automate GitLab releases:
- Configure
gitlab.release: true - Obtain a personal access token (release-it only needs the "api" scope).
- Make sure the token is available as an environment variable.
→ See GitLab Releases for more details.
Changelog
By default, release-it generates a changelog, to show and help select a version for the new release. Additionally, this changelog serves as the release notes for the GitHub or GitLab release.
The default command is based on git log .... This setting (git.changelog) can be overridden. To further
customize the release notes for the GitHub or GitLab release, there's github.releaseNotes or gitlab.releaseNotes.
Make sure any of these commands output the changelog to stdout. Note that release-it by default is agnostic to commit
message conventions. Plugins are available for:
- GitHub and GitLab Releases
- auto-changelog
- Conventional Changelog
- Keep A Changelog
To print the changelog without releasing anything, add the --changelog flag.
→ See Changelog for more details.
Publish to npm
With a package.json in the current directory, release-it will let npm bump the version in package.json (and
package-lock.json if present), and publish to the npm registry.
→ See Publish to npm for more details.
Manage pre-releases
With release-it, it's easy to create pre-releases: a version of your software that you want to make available, while
it's not in the stable semver range yet. Often "alpha", "beta", and "rc" (release candidate) are used as identifiers for
pre-releases. An example pre-release version is 2.0.0-beta.0.
→ See Manage pre-releases for more details.
Update or re-run existing releases
Use --no-increment to not increment the last version, but update the last existing tag/version.
This may be helpful in cases where the version was already incremented. Here are a few example scenarios:
- To update or publish a (draft) GitHub Release for an existing Git tag.
- Publishing to npm succeeded, but pushing the Git tag to the remote failed. Then use
release-it --no-increment --no-npmto skip thenpm publishand try pushing the same Git tag again.
Hooks
Use script hooks to run shell commands at any moment during the release process (such as before:init or
after:release).
The format is [prefix]:[hook] or [prefix]:[plugin]:[hook]:
| part | value |
|---|---|
| prefix | before or after |
| plugin | version, git, npm, github, gitlab |
| hook | init, bump, release |
Use the optional :plugin part in the middle to hook into a life cycle method exactly before or after any plugin.
The core plugins include version, git, npm, github, gitlab.
Note that hooks like after:git:release will not run when either the git push failed, or when it is configured not to
be executed (e.g. git.push: false). See execution order for more details on execution order of plugin lifecycle
methods.
All commands can use configuration variables (like template strings). An array of commands can also be provided, they will run one after another. Some example release-it configuration:
{
"hooks": {
"before:init": ["npm run lint", "npm test"],
"after:my-plugin:bump": "./bin/my-script.sh",
"after:bump": "npm run build",
"after:git:release": "echo After git push, before github release",
"after:release": "echo Successfully released ${name} v${version} to ${repo.repository}."
}
}The variables can be found in the default configuration. Additionally, the following variables are exposed:
version
latestVersion
changelog
name
repo.remote, repo.protocol, repo.host, repo.owner, repo.repository, repo.project
branchName
releaseUrl
All variables are available in all hooks. The only exception is that the additional variables listed above are not yet
available in the init hook.
Use --verbose to log the output of the commands.
For the sake of verbosity, the full list of hooks is actually: init, beforeBump, bump, beforeRelease, release
or afterRelease. However, hooks like before:beforeRelease look weird and are usually not useful in practice.
Note that arguments need to be quoted properly when used from the command line:
release-it --'hooks.after:release="echo Successfully released ${name} v${version} to ${repo.repository}."'Using Inquirer.js inside custom hook scripts might cause issues (since release-it also uses this itself).
Dry Runs
Use --dry-run to show the interactivity and the commands it would execute.
→ See Dry Runs for more details.
Troubleshooting & debugging
- With
release-it --verbose(or-V), release-it prints the output of every user-defined hook. - With
release-it -VV, release-it also prints the output of every internal command. - Use
NODE_DEBUG=release-it:* release-it [...]to print configuration and more error details.
Use verbose: 2 in a configuration file to have the equivalent of -VV on the command line.
Plugins
Since v11, release-it can be extended in many, many ways. Here are some plugins:
| Plugin | Description |
|---|---|
| @release-it/bumper | Read & write the version from/to any file |
| @release-it/conventional-changelog | Provides recommended bump, conventional-changelog, and updates CHANGELOG.md |
| @release-it/keep-a-changelog | Maintain CHANGELOG.md using the Keep a Changelog standards |
| @release-it-plugins/lerna-changelog | Integrates lerna-changelog into the release-it pipeline |
| @jcamp-code/release-it-changelogen | Use @unjs/changelogen for versioning and changelog |
| @release-it-plugins/workspaces | Releases each of your projects configured workspaces |
| release-it-calver-plugin | Enables Calendar Versioning (calver) with release-it |
| @grupoboticario/news-fragments | An easy way to generate your changelog file |
| @j-ulrich/release-it-regex-bumper | Regular expression based version read/write plugin for release-it |
| @jcamp-code/release-it-dotnet | Use .csproj or .props file for versioning, automate NuGet publishing |
| release-it-pnpm | Add basic support for pnpm workspaces, integrates with bumpp and changelogithub |
Internally, release-it uses its own plugin architecture (for Git, GitHub, GitLab, npm).
→ See all release-it plugins on npm.
→ See plugins for documentation to write plugins.
Use release-it programmatically
While mostly used as a CLI tool, release-it can be used as a dependency to integrate in your own scripts. See use release-it programmatically for example code.
Example projects using release-it
- axios/axios
- blockchain/blockchain-wallet-v4-frontend
- callstack/react-native-paper
- ember-cli/ember-cli
- js-cookie/js-cookie
- metalsmith/metalsmith
- mozilla/readability
- pahen/madge
- redis/node-redis
- reduxjs/redux
- saleor/saleor
- Semantic-Org/Semantic-UI-React
- shipshapecode/shepherd
- StevenBlack/hosts
- swagger-api/swagger-ui + swagger-editor
- tabler/tabler + tabler-icons
- youzan/vant
- Repositories that depend on release-it
- GitHub search for path:**/.release-it.json
Legacy Node.js
The latest major version is v17, supporting Node.js 18 and up (as Node.js v16 is EOL). The previous major version was v16, supporting Node.js 16. Use release-it v15 for environments running Node.js v14. Also see CHANGELOG.md.
Links
- See CHANGELOG.md for major/breaking updates, and releases for a detailed version history.
- To contribute, please read CONTRIBUTING.md first.
- Please open an issue if anything is missing or unclear in this documentation.
License
Are you using release-it at work? Please consider sponsoring me!