Obsidian Plugin Release

obsidian-plugin-release

Releasing an Obsidian plugin has 12 manual steps that are easy to half-do (forget versions.json, push tag before main, sign assets without provenance). This skill collapses the flow into a single intent: pick a version → ship.

Detection

The current directory is an Obsidian plugin if all of these exist at the root:

• manifest.json with id, version, minAppVersion keys
• versions.json (the map pluginVersion → minAppVersion)
• main.js listed in .gitignore is fine — we rebuild it

Refuse to run if any of those are missing. Suggest scaffold-workflow if manifest.json exists but .github/workflows/release.yml does not.

Commands

release <version> — full ship

bun run scripts/release.ts <version>          # via package.json script if user added it
# OR direct
~/.claude/skills/obsidian-plugin-release/scripts/release.ts <version>

Steps the script does (each one a hard gate — stop on failure):

1. Verify clean tree — abort if uncommitted changes (unless --allow-dirty).
2. Verify version is new — versions.json must not already contain it.
3. Bump version atomically — write the same <version> to manifest.json, package.json, and append versions.json keyed to current minAppVersion. Use JSON.parse → mutate → write (preserve trailing newline + tab indent that Obsidian expects).
4. Build — bun run build. Abort on non-zero.
5. Lint — bunx eslint src/ (skip if user has no src/ — JS-only plugins exist). Abort on errors.
6. Stage — git add manifest.json package.json versions.json main.js styles.css. Only those 5 files.
7. Commit — conventional message, no Co-Authored-By:

   chore: release <version>
   

8. Push main — git push origin <current-branch>.
9. Tag — git tag -a <version> -m "Release <version>" (annotated because tag.gpgSign=true is common; annotated works either way).
10. Push tag — git push origin <version>. This triggers the release workflow.
11. Wait for workflow — gh run watch --exit-status against the latest run on this tag. Abort if it fails.
12. Verify release — gh release view <version> --json assets must include main.js, manifest.json, styles.css. Attestation is verified via gh attestation verify on main.js.

Print the release URL + the community page (https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/<id>) + the deep link (obsidian://show-plugin?id=<id>) at the end.

release <version> --dry

Print every file that would change, the commit message, the tag message, and the workflow that would fire. No writes, no network calls.

release --check

Audit current state. Output:

• Last released version (from versions.json)
• Current manifest.json version (warn if ahead of versions.json)
• Git tree clean? Branch? Ahead/behind origin?
• Build passes locally?
• Lint passes locally?
• Workflow file present? Has attestation step?

Use this before running a release if anything feels off.

release scaffold-workflow

Drop .github/workflows/release.yml into the current plugin. Idempotent — refuses to overwrite unless --force.

Template lives at templates/release.yml. It:

• Triggers on [0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+ semver tags
• Sets up Bun with frozen lockfile
• Builds via bun run build
• Generates a build-provenance attestation over main.js, manifest.json, styles.css using actions/attest-build-provenance@v2
• Creates or updates the release with the 3 signed assets
• Required permissions: contents: write, id-token: write, attestations: write

Also offer to scaffold templates/eslint.config.mjs if the user is starting from scratch — it ships with the obsidianmd plugin pre-wired and the ignore globs (web/**, assets/**, scripts/**) that match the Obsidian scanner expectations.

Edge cases

• tag.gpgSign=true: always use git tag -a -m "..." to avoid the "no tag message" error. Annotated tags work whether signing is enabled or not, so we use them unconditionally.
• No bun available: fall back to npm run build + npx eslint src/. The released workflow uses Bun regardless — local dev tool is incidental.
• web/ subdir present: the scanner used to lint web/** and flag the Next.js landing site as a million unsafe-returns. Make sure eslint.config.mjs has web/** in ignores and the ignores block sits before obsidianmd.configs.recommended (the obsidianmd config spreads files: ["**/*.ts", "**/*.tsx"] which otherwise picks web/ up). See references/scanner-warnings.md.
• Plugin not yet listed on Obsidian Community: the workflow still runs. The release exists, the attestation exists, the deep link obsidian://show-plugin?id=<id> only works once Obsidian's directory crawler picks it up (≤24h after submission).
• First release ever: the script accepts --first and skips the "version is new" check. Useful when bumping from 0.0.0 to 0.1.0 for the first submission.

Anti-patterns (don't)

• Don't bypass the tag. The workflow is the source of truth for attestation. Manual gh release create skips the OIDC signing step and the Obsidian scanner will flag missing provenance.
• Don't squash versions.json. It's a permanent ledger. Appending only.
• Don't push tag before main. Workflow checks out the tag commit; if main isn't there yet, the build references commits that don't exist on the default branch.
• Don't release from a dirty tree. The committed main.js must match the built main.js from the source. If they diverge, build-provenance won't fail but reproducibility (Build verified: byte-for-byte) will.

Files

• scripts/release.ts — main entry, runs the 12 steps
• templates/release.yml — GitHub Actions release workflow
• templates/eslint.config.mjs — Obsidian scanner-friendly eslint config
• references/scanner-warnings.md — common Obsidian scanner findings + how to fix
• references/changelog-style.md — recommended commit + release notes format

Related skills

• skill-creator — for authoring new skills (this one was made with it)
• skillkit — local analytics for skill usage