๐ Generic CLI tool to automate versioning and package publishing related tasks:
- Execute test & build commands
- Bump version (in e.g.
package.json
) - Git commit, tag, push
- Create release at GitHub or GitLab
- Generate changelog
- Publish to npm
- Manage pre-releases
- Hooks
- Extend with plugins
- Release from any CI/CD environment
- Since v11, release-it supports plugins, so virtually any functionality can be added to your release process.
- For updates, see CHANGELOG.md for major 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.
Table of Contents (click to expand)
- Installation
- Usage
- Configuration
- Interactive vs. CI mode
- Latest version
- Prerequisite checks
- Git
- Mercurial
- GitHub Releases
- GitLab Releases
- Changelog
- Publish to npm
- Manage pre-releases
- Hooks
- Scripts (deprecated)
- Plugins
- Distribution repository
- Metrics
- Troubleshooting & debugging
- Use release-it programmatically
- Example projects using release-it
- Resources
- Credits
Although release-it is a generic release tool, installation requires npm. A package.json
file is not required. The
recommended way to install release-it also adds basic configuration. Answer one or two questions and it's ready:
npm init release-it
Alternatively, install it manually, and add the release
script to package.json
:
npm install --save-dev release-it
{
"name": "my-package",
"version": "1.0.0",
"scripts": {
"release": "release-it"
},
"devDependencies": {
"release-it": "*"
}
}
Now you can run npm run release
from the command line (any release-it arguments behind the --
):
npm run release
npm run release -- minor --ci
Use release-it in any (non-npm) project, take it for a test drive, or install it globally:
# Run release-it from anywhere (without installation)
npx release-it
# Install globally and run from anywhere
npm install --global release-it
release-it
Release a new version:
release-it
You will be prompted to select the new version. To skip the first prompt, provide a specific increment or version:
release-it minor
release-it 0.8.3
For a "dry run", to show the interactivity and the commands it would execute:
release-it --dry-run
Note: read-only commands are still executed ($ ...
), while the rest is not (! ...
):
$ git rev-parse --git-dir
.git
! git add package.json
! git commit --message="Release 0.8.3"
Out of the box, release-it has sane defaults, and plenty of options to configure it. Put (only) the options to override in a configuration file. This is where release-it looks for configuration:
.release-it.json
.release-it.js
(export the configuration object:module.exports = {}
).release-it.yaml
(or.yml
).release-it.toml
package.json
(in therelease-it
property)
Use --config
to use another path for the configuration file. An example .release-it.json
:
{
"git": {
"tagName": "v${version}"
},
"github": {
"release": true
}
}
Or in a release-it
property in package.json
:
{
"name": "my-package",
"devDependencies": {
"release-it": "*"
},
"release-it": {
"github": {
"release": true
}
}
}
Or use YAML in .release-it.yml
:
git:
commitMessage: 'chore: release v${version}'
Or TOML in .release-it.toml
:
[hooks]
before:init = "npm test"
Any option can also be set on the command-line, and will have highest priority. Example:
release-it minor --git.tagName='v${version}' --github.release
Boolean arguments can be negated by using the no-
prefix:
release-it --no-npm.publish
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. On a Continuous Integration (CI) environment, this non-interactive mode is
activated automatically.
Note: the old -n
(or --non-interactive
) option still works and is identical to --ci
.
For projects with a package.json
, its version
will be used. Otherwise, release-it uses the latest Git tag to
determine which version should be released. In any case, as a last resort, 0.0.0
will be used as the latest version.
Use --no-increment
to not increment the version.
Use --no-npm
(or "npm": false
) to ignore and skip bumping package.json
(and skip npm publish
).
Alternatively, a plugin can be used to get the version from anywhere else (e.g. a VERSION
file). Also see
plugins.
Read more about prerequisites checks release-it does to help prevent incorrect or polluted releases.
Git projects are supported well by release-it, automating the tasks to stage, commit, tag and push releases to any Git remote.
โ See Git for more details.
An experimental Mercurial plugin is available.
The "Releases" tab on GitHub projects links to a page to store the changelog cq. release notes. To add GitHub releases in your release-it flow:
- Configure
github.release: true
. - Obtain a personal access token (release-it only needs "repo" access; no "admin" or other scopes).
- Make sure the token is available as an environment variable. Example:
export GITHUB_TOKEN="f941e0..."
โ See GitHub Releases for more details.
GitLab releases work just like GitHub 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. Example:
export GITLAB_TOKEN="f941e0..."
โ See GitLab Releases for more details.
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 customize the release notes for the GitHub or GitLab release, use github.releaseNotes
or
gitlab.releaseNotes
. Make sure any of these commands output the changelog to stdout
.
Instead of executing a shell command, a (Handlebars) template can be used to generate the changelog. See auto-changelog for more details. If your project follows conventions, such as the Angular commit guidelines, the @release-it/conventional-changelog plugin is useful.
โ See Changelog for more details.
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.
โ See Publish to npm for more details.
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 identifier for
pre-releases. An example pre-release version is 2.0.0-beta.0
.
โ See Manage pre-releases for more details.
Use script hooks to run shell commands at any moment during the release process. The format is [prefix]:[hook]
or
[prefix]:[namespace]:[hook]
:
part | value |
---|---|
prefix | before or after |
namespace | version , git , npm , github , gitlab or [plugin-name] |
hook | init , beforeBump , bump , beforeRelease , release or afterRelease |
Use the optional namespace
to precisely hook into a life cycle method between specific plugins. The core namespaces
(plugins) include version
, git
, npm
, github
, gitlab
. When using a custom plugin, that namespace will also be
available (e.g. @release-it/conventional-changelog
has the conventional-changelog
namespace).
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 examples:
{
"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
All variables are available in all hooks. The only exception is that the additional variables listed above are not
available in the init
hook.
Please use hooks instead, as hooks are more flexible. The scripts
will stay for a while, but will be removed
in a few major releases after v12. Here's how to migrate:
scripts.beforeStart
โhooks.before:init
scripts.beforeBump
โhooks.before:bump
scripts.afterBump
โhooks.after:bump
scripts.beforeStage
โhooks.after:bump
scripts.afterRelease
โhooks.after:release
Since v11, release-it can be extended in many, many ways.
โ See plugins for more details.
Some projects use a distribution repository. Generated files (such as compiled assets or documentation) can be
distributed to a separate repository. Or to a separate branch, such as a gh-pages
. Some examples include
shim repositories and a separate
packaged Angular.js repository for distribution on npm and Bower.
The dist.repo
option was removed in v10, but similar setups can still be achieved. Please see the
distribution repository recipe for example configurations.
Use --disable-metrics
to opt-out of sending some anonymous statistical data to Google Analytics. For details, refer to
lib/metrics.js. Please consider to not opt-out: more data means more support for future development.
- With
release-it --verbose
, release-it prints every command and its output. - Prepend
DEBUG=release-it:* release-it [...]
to print configuration and more error details. - Use
DEBUG=* release-it [...]
to include debug output for dependencies, such as @octokit/rest.
While mostly used as a CLI tool, release-it can be used as a dependency to ingrate in your own scripts. See use release-it programmatically for example code.
- react-navigation/react-navigation
- swagger-api/swagger-ui
- StevenBlack/hosts
- react-native-community/react-native-tab-view
- callstack/linaria
- blockchain/blockchain-wallet-v4-frontend
- infor-design/enterprise
- tsqllint/tsqllint
- segmentio/typewriter
- Repositories that depend on release-it
- GitHub search for projects with .release-it.json
- semver.org
- GitHub Help (โ About Releases)
- npm Blog: Publishing what you mean to publish
- npm Documentation: package.json
- Prereleases and npm
- Glob Primer (node-glob) (release-it uses globby)
Major dependencies:
The following Grunt plugins have been a source of inspiration: