Release

Release

Audit unreleased changes across engines and client SDKs, determine version bumps, and identify what needs releasing.

Overview

This monorepo has three release layers that must be released in order:

1. Engines (Rust crates) - must be released first, SDKs depend on them
2. FFI-based SDKs - depend on flipt-engine-ffi binaries published to GitHub releases
3. WASM/WASM-JS SDKs - depend on flipt-engine-wasm / flipt-engine-wasm-js artifacts

Important JS ordering: flipt-client-react has a peer dependency on @flipt-io/flipt-client-js. When releasing both JS and React SDKs, do not publish them in parallel. Release flipt-client-js first, then bump @flipt-io/flipt-client-js in flipt-client-react/package.json, then release flipt-client-react.

Step 1: Audit Engine Changes

Find last engine release tags

Each engine has its own tag namespace:

# FFI engine (triggers: package-ffi-engine-{darwin,linux,windows,android,ios}.yml)
git tag --sort=-creatordate | grep "flipt-engine-ffi-v" | head -5

# WASM engine (triggers: package-wasm-engine.yml)
git tag --sort=-creatordate | grep "flipt-engine-wasm-v" | head -5

# WASM-JS engine (triggers: package-wasm-js-engine.yml)
git tag --sort=-creatordate | grep "flipt-engine-wasm-js-v" | head -5

List unreleased engine commits

# Changes to engine code since last FFI release
git log --oneline <last-ffi-tag>..HEAD --no-merges -- flipt-evaluation/ flipt-engine-ffi/

# Changes to WASM engine since last WASM release
git log --oneline <last-wasm-tag>..HEAD --no-merges -- flipt-evaluation/ flipt-engine-wasm/

# Changes to WASM-JS engine since last WASM-JS release
git log --oneline <last-wasm-js-tag>..HEAD --no-merges -- flipt-evaluation/ flipt-engine-wasm-js/

Check current versions

grep '^version' flipt-evaluation/Cargo.toml flipt-engine-ffi/Cargo.toml flipt-engine-wasm/Cargo.toml flipt-engine-wasm-js/Cargo.toml

Determine version bumps (semver)

• fix only -> patch bump
• feat or new capability -> minor bump
• Breaking API change -> major bump

Only bump crates that have actual changes. flipt-evaluation only needs a bump if commits touched flipt-evaluation/ directly.

Step 2: Audit Client SDK Changes

For each SDK, find its latest release tag and list unreleased commits:

git tag --sort=-creatordate | grep "flipt-client-" | head -30
git log --oneline <last-sdk-tag>..HEAD --no-merges -- <sdk-directory>/

SDK reference table

Step 3: Categorize and Prioritize

Present a summary table classifying each SDK:

• Must release: Has feat/fix commits in its own directory (someone contributed a fix and it's not released yet)
• Should release: Benefits from engine bump + has dep updates
• No release needed: No changes since last release, no engine bump affects it

Output format

## Engine Release Status
| Engine | Current Version | Last Tag | Unreleased Commits | Bump Needed |
|--------|----------------|----------|-------------------|-------------|

## SDK Release Status
| SDK | Last Release | Unreleased Commits | Key Changes | Priority |
|-----|-------------|-------------------|-------------|----------|

Step 4: Release Engines (if needed)

Engine release is a three-step process per RELEASE.md:

1. Bump version in Cargo.toml for affected crates
2. Run cargo check to verify compilation and update Cargo.lock
3. Create a PR with the version bump, merge it
4. Create and push tags from main after merge:
   • flipt-engine-ffi-v{version} — triggers CI to build and publish FFI binaries to GitHub release
   • flipt-engine-wasm-v{version} — for bookkeeping (WASM is bundled with its SDKs at SDK release time)
   • flipt-engine-wasm-js-v{version} — for bookkeeping (WASM-JS is bundled with its SDKs at SDK release time)

Only FFI-based SDKs need to wait for engine CI — the FFI tag triggers builds that publish platform binaries. WASM/WASM-JS engines are built and bundled during SDK release, so their SDKs can be released immediately after tagging.

Step 5: Release Client SDKs

Use the non-interactive CLI script (preferred for automation):

cd release && .venv/bin/python release_cli.py --sdk flipt-client-go --bump patch             # dry-run (default)
cd release && .venv/bin/python release_cli.py --sdk flipt-client-go --bump patch --publish   # real release
cd release && .venv/bin/python release_cli.py --sdk flipt-client-js --bump patch --publish --pr

If the venv doesn't exist yet: cd release && python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

Options:

• --sdk NAME: SDK to release (required)
• --bump patch|minor|major: Version bump type
• --version X.Y.Z: Explicit version instead of bump
• --publish: Actually release (default is dry-run)
• --pr: Create a PR instead of pushing to main

The interactive version (python release.py) is also available for manual use.

Release order usually doesn't matter between independent SDKs, but FFI-based SDKs must wait for engine artifacts to be published.

JS + React release order

When releasing both flipt-client-js and flipt-client-react:

1. Release flipt-client-js first and wait for the npm publish workflow to succeed.
2. Update flipt-client-react/package.json so peerDependencies["@flipt-io/flipt-client-js"] points at the newly published JS SDK version.
3. Run npm install in flipt-client-react/ so package-lock.json is updated.
4. Commit that React dependency bump.
5. Release flipt-client-react.

Do not publish JS and React at the same time: React's package metadata must reference the JS version that is already available on npm.