In simple English
This tool watches your code changes and writes your release notes for you. It reads your commit messages to figure out what changed in your project. Then it opens a pull request that bumps your version number and updates your changelog file. When you are ready to ship, you merge that pull request. You need to follow a strict commit message format for this tool to work.
What it is
Release Please is an automation tool that manages your project versions and changelogs. It parses your git history for standard commit prefixes and prepares release pull requests.
What it is good for
Solo builders who want to stop writing changelogs by hand and need a reliable way to automate version bumps.
- Keeps your changelog up to date without manual work.
- Integrates smoothly into your existing GitHub workflows.
- Supports many languages including Node, Python, Go, and Rust.
- Requires strict discipline in how you write every commit message.
- Setup requires configuring a GitHub Action and repository secrets.
- Does not publish your package to registries like npm by itself.
Writing your changelog and bumping version numbers by hand
GitHub Actions for running automated workflows on your repository
- changesets/changesets12k stars
A library for managing version bumps and changelogs with a focus on monorepos.
- semantic-release/semantic-release24k stars
Fully automates the package release process by determining version numbers based on commit messages.
- nicolargo/glances34k stars
A live view of one computer's health, in a terminal, in a browser, or through an AI assistant.
- dokku/dokku32k stars
A small platform you install on one server, which builds and runs an app every time you push code to it.
- netbox-community/netbox22k stars
A database of what a network and its hardware are supposed to look like, which other programs can read.
npm install -g release-please