Cut Release

Cut a meshkit release

Publishing a release here is intentionally a one-action step: flip the existing Release Drafter draft from draft to published. meshkit is a Go module consumed by tag, so publishing the draft cuts the version tag that downstream repos (meshery, meshery-cloud, and the other ecosystem components) then bump their go.mod to.

How releasing works in this repo

• .github/workflows/release-drafter.yml runs on every push to master. As PRs merge, it maintains a single draft GitHub Release whose tag auto-increments (the patch version bumps after each publish). There is always exactly one draft waiting to be published.
• Publishing that draft (the release published event) creates the immutable version tag and finalizes the notes. meshkit has no build/deploy workflow that fires on the release event - it is a Go library, so the release is the tag. Consumers pick up the new version by running go get github.com/meshery/meshkit@<tag> (or a dependency bump PR) in their own repos.

So the tag is already chosen and the notes are already drafted. Your job is only to make sure the just-merged PR is reflected in the draft, then publish it. Do not create a tag, do not bump a version, do not write release notes by hand - Release Drafter owns all of that.

Steps

1. Confirm the Release Drafter run for the latest master commit has finished

The draft only includes a PR after the drafter workflow run for that merge commit completes. If you publish too early, the just-merged PR is missing from the notes.

# Latest master commit that should be in the release
git fetch origin master --quiet && git rev-parse origin/master

# Most recent Release Drafter runs (headSha should match origin/master, status "completed")
gh run list --workflow="release-drafter.yml" --branch master --limit 3 \
  --json databaseId,status,conclusion,headSha,createdAt

If the run for the current origin/master SHA is still in_progress (or absent because the push just landed), wait for it before publishing:

gh run watch <databaseId> --exit-status

A conclusion of success for the run whose headSha matches origin/master means the draft is up to date. If the latest run failed, stop and surface that - do not publish stale notes.

2. Identify and inspect the draft

# Tag of the current draft (there is normally exactly one)
gh release list --limit 25 --json tagName,isDraft --jq '.[] | select(.isDraft) | .tagName'

# Read the draft notes and confirm the recently merged PR appears in them
gh release view <draftTag> --json tagName,name,isDraft,body --jq \
  '{tag: .tagName, name: .name, isDraft: .isDraft, body: .body}'

Verify the merged PR the user is releasing shows up under one of the category headings. If it does not, the drafter run from step 1 has not yet indexed it - re-check step 1 rather than publishing without it.

If more than one draft is ever returned, stop and ask the user which to publish rather than guessing - publishing the wrong one ships an unintended version.

3. Publish the draft

Flipping --draft=false publishes it, which cuts the version tag. Mark it --latest so it carries the "Latest" badge.

gh release edit <draftTag> --draft=false --latest

4. Confirm it published

gh release view <draftTag> --json tagName,isDraft,isLatest,publishedAt --jq \
  '{tag: .tagName, isDraft: .isDraft, isLatest: .isLatest, publishedAt: .publishedAt}'

isDraft: false and a non-null publishedAt confirm the release is out. Report the published version to the user and note that downstream consumers can now bump to @<tag>.

What to watch for

• Don't publish ahead of the drafter run. The most common failure is publishing before the Release Drafter workflow has folded the merged PR into the notes, shipping a release whose notes omit the very change being released. Step 1 exists to prevent exactly this.
• Never hand-author the tag or notes. If you find yourself computing a version number or writing changelog entries, something is wrong - Release Drafter already did both.
• One draft only. If gh release list shows zero drafts, no drafter run has occurred since the last release; if it shows more than one, ask the user which to publish.