quick-release

Quick and easy generate and publish your App/Repo releases

Documentation

Table of contents

• Why?
• Main features
• Quick start
• Release types
• Changelog generation
• GitHub Release Notes generation
• Quick Release custom config
  • Default settings
  • Custom settings example #1
  • Custom settings example #2
• Screenshots
• Contributing
• Changelog

Why?

• To automate recurring and routine operations and steps to create a release. In this scenario, "release" refers to a git release that follows a semantic versioning guidelines.
• To have the possibility to generate Changelog notes based on the git log and save them to a markdown file as a part of the release commit.
• To have the possibility to generate GitHub Release Notes based on a remote GitHub commit log and publish it as a part of the GitHub release.
• Perform all the steps above locally rather than as a CI step, for greater control over what to include in the release.

Main features

• Create a release by answering a few questions in seconds.
• Two release types: local and remote.
• Lot of checks to prevent any possible problems with the release.
• Generate a new release commit with a new tag.
• Push all changes/new tag to remote repository.
• Generate Changelog
• Generate GitHub Release Notes
• Perform all release steps locally with full control.
• Possibility to stop if something goes wrong.
• Flexible configuration options based on a config file quickrelease.json

Quick start

1. Install quick-release globally

npm install -g quick-release

2. Open the folder with your project and run command below to start release process

quick-release

or alias

qr

Other options

Options
-v , --version	Print version information and quit
-h , --help	Print help information and quit
-i , --info	Print projected information for a new potential release and quit
-d , --debug	Print additional debug information during the release process

Release types

• Local release

  A local release is the basis for every git-based release type. It includes a new release commit with a new tag and generated changelog notes that are added to markdown file on demand.

• Remote release

  A local release as a base, as well as pushing a tagged release commit to a remote repository. Additionally, there is an option to create and publish a GitHub Release with notes.

Changelog generation

Changelog list is a feature that allows you to generate a changelog based on the git log and publish it to a markdown file CHANGELOG.md as a part of the release commit. With additional options, you can also filter and separate changelog notes by generic and breaking changes. This is an optional step that can be skipped during the release process.

GitHub Release Notes generation

GitHub Release Notes is a feature that allows you to generate a release note based on a remote GitHub commit log and publish it as a part of the GitHub release. With additional options, you can also sepparate notes by purpose (breaking changes, features, bugfixes, etc.) and add a custom header to each section. This is an optional step that can be skipped during the release process.

Requirements

To publish GitHub Release Notes, it is necessary to include a GitHub fine-grained personal access token with Contents read and write repository permission in the .env file.

GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token

Quick Release custom config

To customize your quick-release settings, simply add a quickrelease.json configuration file to the root of your project and adjust the configurations to meet your needs.

quickrelease.json options

Option	Default	Description
files	package.json,package-lock.json	Additional .json files to parse, update version, and include into release
changelog.file	CHANGELOG.md	Changelog file name
changelog.labels		Git commit labels/prefixes to use for building and filtering changelog notes
changelog.breakingLabel		Label/prefix to indicate breaking changes in git log
githubReleaseTitles		Github Release Notes titles

---

Default settings

In case your project lacks a quickrelease.json config file, default settings will be utilized.

• package.json and package-lock.json files, if present, will be updated with the new version and included in the release commit.
• CHANGELOG.md file will be created if it does not exist. Optional
  • All git log messages will be included in the changelog.
  • No separation in the changelog into generic and breaking changes
• All GitHub commit log messages will be included as changelist for GitHub Release Notes. Optional

git-log example

[!!!] breaking change commit message
[FEATURE] new feature commit message
unimportant commit message
[BUGFIX] bug fix commit message
[!!!] breaking change commit message
[DOC] documentation update commit message
unimportant commit message
[FEATURE] new feature commit message
initial commit

CHANGELOG.md example based on git-log above with default settings

v1.0.0 July 4, 2023

• [!!!] breaking change commit message af1a8a2 (author_name)
• [FEATURE] new feature commit message 30c13f6 (author_name)
• unimportant commit message 676d50e (author_name)
• [BUGFIX] bug fix commit message 1cc492f (author_name)
• [!!!] breaking change commit message. 1f081e1 (author_name)
• [DOC] documentation update commit message 6ebb7ed (author_name)
• unimportant commit message 1418533 (author_name)
• [FEATURE] new feature commit message. fa36968 (author_name)
• initial commit 7821b3c (author_name)

GitHub Release Notes example based on git-log above with default settings

---

Custom settings example #1

quickrelease.json

{
  "changelog": {
    "labels": ["[FEATURE]","[BUGFIX]","[TASK]","[DOC]","[TEST]"],
    "breakingLabel": "[!!!]"
  },
  "githubReleaseTitles": ["New Features", "Bugfixes", "General", "Documentation", "Tests"]
}

git-log example

[!!!] breaking change commit message
[FEATURE] new feature commit message
unimportant commit message
[BUGFIX] bug fix commit message
[!!!] breaking change commit message
[DOC] documentation update commit message
unimportant commit message
[FEATURE] new feature commit message
initial commit

CHANGELOG.md example based on git-log above with custom settings #1

v1.0.0 July 4, 2023

• [FEATURE] new feature commit message 30c13f6 (author_name)
• [BUGFIX] bug fix commit message 1cc492f (author_name)
• [DOC] documentation update commit message 6ebb7ed (author_name)
• [FEATURE] new feature commit message fa36968 (author_name)

Breaking Changes

• [!!!] breaking change commit message af1a8a2 (author_name)
• [!!!] breaking change commit message 1f081e1 (author_name)

GitHub Release Notes example based on git-log above with custom settings #1

---

Custom settings example #2

quickrelease.json

{
  "files": ["app.json"],
  "changelog": {
    "labels": ["feat:","fix:","docs:"],
    "breakingLabel": "BREAKING CHANGE:"
  },
  "githubReleaseTitles": ["New Features", "Bugfixes", "Documentation"]
}

git-log example

BREAKING CHANGE: breaking change commit message
feat: new feature commit message
unimportant commit message
fix: bug fix commit message
BREAKING CHANGE: breaking change commit message
docs: documentation update commit message
unimportant commit message
feat: new feature commit message
initial commit

CHANGELOG.md example based on git-log above with custom settings #2

v1.0.0 July 4, 2023

• feat: new feature commit message 30c13f6 (author_name)
• fix: bug fix commit message 1cc492f (author_name)
• docs: documentation update commit message 6ebb7ed (author_name)
• feat: new feature commit message fa36968 (author_name)

Breaking Changes

• BREAKING CHANGE: breaking change commit message af1a8a2 (author_name)
• BREAKING CHANGE: breaking change commit message 1f081e1 (author_name)

GitHub Release Notes example based on git-log above with custom settings #2

---

Screenshots

Contributing

1. Clone the repository and run npm link to install dependencies and create a symlink to the global node_modules folder.
2. Now you can run quick-release command from any folder to test your changes.
3. Add your changes to repository.
4. Run npm test to run tests.
5. Commit your changes and create a pull request.