shikai

shikai is a Conventional Commits-based release CLI. It inspects commits since the last tag, recommends a version bump, generates a changelog, creates a release commit and annotated tag, and can push the tag to the remote.

Motivation

I created this to finally get rid of a bunch of simmilar tasks/scripts sprinkled throughout almost every repo I work in and written in a wild mixture of bash, make, taskfile and JS. It ain't much, but it frees up time wasted by broken release scripts.

Install

npm

npx @nicolaiort/shikai

Or install globally:

npm install -g @nicolaiort/shikai

Go

go install github.com/nicolaiort/shikai@latest

Pre-built binary

Download the binary for your platform from the latest release.

Choose the asset that matches your OS and architecture:

• shikai-linux-amd64
• shikai-linux-arm64
• shikai-darwin-amd64
• shikai-darwin-arm64
• shikai-windows-amd64.exe
• shikai-windows-arm64.exe

After downloading, make it executable on Unix-like systems:

chmod +x shikai-*

Then move it somewhere on your PATH.

Helper script

On Linux and macOS, you can install the latest matching release binary with Bash:

bash ./scripts/install-latest-release.sh

By default, the script installs to ~/bin. Pass INSTALL_DIR=/some/path or a path argument to use a different location.

Configuration

Repository config

You can add an optional .shikai.yml file in the repository root to set defaults such as always pushing tags:

push: true
tag-prefix: v
template: templates/release-changelog.tpl.md

Any supported settings can be added later without changing the CLI shape, including a custom changelog template path. Start from shikai.sample.yml in the repo root and copy it to .shikai.yml. Set tag-prefix: "" to create plain semver tags like 1.2.3 instead of v1.2.3.

Hooks

shikai can run shell hooks from .shikai.yml:

• hooks.before
• hooks.after-changelog
• hooks.after-tag
• hooks.after-done

Hooks are skipped during --dry-run; the CLI prints the commands it would have run instead. Hook commands receive SHIKAI_TAG with the release tag being created.

Usage

Run the CLI from the root of the git repository you want to release:

shikai

Generate the current release notes body for stdout:

shikai changelog > release-notes.md

Print the full changelog for all versions:

shikai changelog --full > CHANGELOG.md

Common flags:

• --patch, --minor, --major to pick the version bump directly
• --dry-run to show what would happen without changing anything
• --full to print the full changelog instead of just the latest release notes
• --push to push the tag without prompting
• --prerelease and --prerelease-id to create a prerelease tag
• --changelog-path to write the changelog somewhere other than CHANGELOG.md
• --template to use a custom git-chglog template
• --push pushes the release commit and tag to the current branch remote

Example:

shikai --minor

Development

Build locally:

go build -o shikai .

Or build for the current platform:

task build

Run tests:

go test ./...