@firefoxic/release-it

A powerful release script that automates the entire release process including updating changelog, npm publishing (using pnpm) and GitHub releases.

Purpose

Publishing a new version of a package is a routine sequence of several steps involving running commands, editing files, entering passwords, copying text to GitHub, and so on. It's easy to make a mistake at any stage, especially when editing CHANGELOG.md. Do it all with a single command or push to the release branch.

Usage

• In GitHub CI

  1. Create a release action. See the release.yaml file for an example, where important points are described in the comments.
  2. In the settings of your package on https://npmjs.com, enable trusted publishing (if you haven't already).
  3. Push the branch named starting with release (see below) to GitHub.

• Locally

  1. On the branch with a name starting with release (see below), just run:

     pnpm dlx @firefoxic/release-it
     # or
     # pnx @firefoxic/release-it

  2. If the machine has no npm session, the script runs pnpm login before it touches the repository, so a login that fails leaves nothing to clean up.

  3. And enter OTP.

• Preview

  To check what a release would do — which version it picks, how CHANGELOG.md would change, under which npm tag it would publish — without changing anything:

  pnpm dlx @firefoxic/release-it --dry-run

Requirements

• pnpm

• Node.js (you can install it using pnpm)

• Git repository with GitHub remote

• GitHub CLI (gh) for locally using

  # First time setup — authenticate with GitHub
  gh auth login

Branch-based Release Types

The release script uses branch names to determine the release type:

• release → Stable release (e.g., 1.1.0)
• release-first-major → The first major release, 1.0.0 (see below)
• release-first-major-rc → A prerelease of it (e.g., 1.0.0-rc.1); release-first-major- → a numbered one (e.g., 1.0.0-1)
• release-alpha → Alpha prerelease (e.g., 1.0.0-alpha.1)
• release-beta → Beta prerelease (e.g., 1.0.0-beta.1)
• release-rc → Release candidate (e.g., 1.0.0-rc.1)
• release- → Numbered prerelease (e.g., 1.0.0-1)

Version Detection

The script automatically determines the version bump based on changelog content:

• ### Changed → Major version (breaking changes)
• ### Added → Minor version (new features)
• ### Fixed → Patch version (bug fixes)

These three are the only headings the script recognises; any other one stops the release. That narrowing is deliberate — three headings map one to one onto the three parts of a semantic version, so nothing is left to interpretation. The remaining Keep a Changelog headings fold into them:

• Removed → Changed. Taking functionality away is a change, and a breaking one.
• Security → Fixed. Closing a vulnerability is a bug fix.
• Deprecated → Changed. Semantic Versioning treats a deprecation as a minor change, but deprecation messages often force a change to an established workflow, and that is a major change by nature.

Before 1.0.0

While the package is below 1.0.0, ### Changed bumps the minor version, not the major one: 0.4.2 → 0.5.0. Semantic Versioning reserves 0.y.z for initial development, where anything may change at any time, so a breaking change there is expected and is not a reason to leave the range. The same cap applies to prereleases (0.5.0-beta.0, not 1.0.0-beta.0).

Reaching 1.0.0 is a deliberate decision, so it is made with a branch rather than a heading. Release from release-first-major and the version becomes 1.0.0 regardless of which headings the [Unreleased] section carries — it still has to be non-empty, since it becomes the release notes. The branch works only once: with the package already at 1.0.0 or above it refuses to run, and release takes over from there.

The first major can be tried out first: release-first-major-<name> publishes 1.0.0-<name>.0, 1.0.0-<name>.1, … under the <name> dist-tag, and release-first-major- publishes 1.0.0-0, 1.0.0-1, … under next — exactly as release-<name> and release- do for any other version. Once such a prerelease is out, release-first-major turns it into 1.0.0.

pnpm workspaces

A repository whose pnpm-workspace.yaml lists packages is treated as a monorepo; nothing has to be switched on. Only pnpm workspaces are supported — the script relies on pnpm for everything else, too.

• Every workspace package keeps its own CHANGELOG.md, in the same format as a single package would. The root does not need one.

• Every non-private package with entries under [Unreleased] is released; a package whose [Unreleased] section is empty is left alone. Each released package gets its own bump from its own headings, so the versions stay independent.

• The whole release is one commit — every bumped package.json together with every rewritten CHANGELOG.md — with one tag per package, named <name>@<version> ([email protected], @acme/[email protected]): a plain v1.3.0 could not say which package it belongs to. The [Unreleased] link of a package changelog therefore points at such a tag:

  [Unreleased]: https://github.com/<user-name>/<project-name>/compare/<package-name>@0.0.1...HEAD

• Each package is published to npm and gets a GitHub release of its own, with its changelog entries as the notes.

• The release branch applies to all of them: release-beta makes a beta of every package being released, and release-first-major takes every one of them to 1.0.0 — and refuses to run if any of them is already there.

Authentication

• CI/CD: Uses NPM trusted publishing
• Local: Checks the npm session up front, runs pnpm login when there is none, and only then asks for an OTP — all before the version commit, the tag and the branch exist
• GitHub: Requires gh auth login or GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable

Changelog restrictions

• The name of the changelog file is CHANGELOG.md.

• The format of the changelog is consistent with Keep a changelog.

• Descriptions of all user-important changes are already in the changelog under the heading [Unreleased]. Ideally, you should commit them along with the changes themselves.

• If this is the first release of a package, there should be only one reference for [Unreleased] at the end of the changelog in the following format for correct reference updating:

  [Unreleased]: https://github.com/<user-name>/<project-name>/compare/v0.0.1...HEAD