release-management

Release Management Skill

Releases are managed by release-please with unified "v" prefix versioning.

How It Works

Commits pushed to main trigger .github/workflows/release.yml
release-please analyses conventional commits since the last release
It opens or updates a single Release PR titled chore: release v{version}, which bumps every package.json and prepends the new entry to CHANGELOG.md
Nothing is released until the Release PR is merged; Claude decides when (see below)
Merging it creates the v{version} tag and the GitHub Release

feat bumps the minor version, fix and perf bump the patch, and feat! or a BREAKING CHANGE footer bumps the major.

When to Merge the Release PR

Claude owns this decision, not Ru. Check the open Release PR whenever a feature PR merges and during triage, then merge it when the criteria below are met.

Merge when:

It contains at least one feat, or
It is fix- or perf-only and has been open for 7 days or more

Hold when:

The latest production deployment of main failed, or a revert of something in it is pending
The Release PR changes anything besides CHANGELOG.md, .release-please-manifest.json and the version fields; investigate instead

Ask Ru first when:

It is a major bump (feat! or a BREAKING CHANGE footer)

Merge with gh pr merge <number> --squash so main gets one chore: release v{version} commit. Report the version and the PR link afterwards.

Version Scheme

Format: v{major}.{minor}.{patch} (e.g., v5.31.0)
Unified version across the entire monorepo
Tags have no component prefix (include-component-in-tag: false)

Configuration

release-please-config.json: release-type: node for the root package, with every workspace package.json listed under extra-files so they share the root version
.release-please-manifest.json: the current version; release-please updates it in each Release PR

A new workspace package needs an extra-files entry, or its version will drift.

Checking Release Status

# View the open Release PR
gh pr list --label "autorelease: pending"

# View recent releases
gh release list --limit 5

# Check release workflow status
gh run list --workflow=release.yml --limit 5

Debugging

No Release PR

Only feat, fix, perf and breaking commits trigger a release; chore, docs and similar do not
Check the workflow ran: gh run list --workflow=release.yml

Release PR has no checks

PRs opened with GITHUB_TOKEN do not trigger other workflows, so PR checks do not run on the Release PR. It only changes versions and the changelog

Force a specific version

Add a commit with a Release-As: x.y.z footer, or set release-as in release-please-config.json

See changelog skill for changelog details
See deployment-rollback skill for rolling back releases
Workflow: .github/workflows/release.yml

About this skill