release

Release is a command‑line utility that creates a new GitHub Release and fills it with the commits made since the previous release. After installing the package globally via npm or Yarn, the tool is run inside a project directory with a single command, optionally specifying a SemVer change type (major, minor, patch) or a pre‑release suffix. If no type is provided, the latest commit and tag are used to generate the release.

The tool can infer the change type from commit messages that include a parenthesized label such as “(patch)” and can ignore commits marked with “(ignore)”. A custom hook file named release.js may be placed in the project root to modify the generated markdown, using provided metadata about change types, commits, grouped commits, and authors. The hook location can be overridden with a command‑line flag.

Release was created to automate the workflow of turning commit histories into GitHub Release notes, eliminating the need to manually edit releases in the browser. It is stable and intended for developers who manage versioned projects on GitHub.