Metro Release

New Metro Release

Overview

Creates a draft GitHub release for react/metro by reading commits since the last tag and turning them into a labeled changelog. The release process is manual; this skill automates the mechanical parts (diffing commits, fetching PR/author metadata, formatting notes) and leaves the editorial judgment to you.

Source of truth is the react/metro remote on GitHub, not your local checkout. Always fetch fresh before diffing.

Never publish. Always create the release as a draft and stop. A human reviews and publishes.

Step 1 — Sync from react/metro

Fetch the canonical tags and main directly from react/metro so the diff is authoritative regardless of how your local remotes are configured:

git fetch https://github.com/react/metro.git main --tags

Find the latest release tag (tags are vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, e.g. v0.84.4):

LAST_TAG=$(git tag --list 'v*' --sort=-v:refname | head -1)
echo "$LAST_TAG"

Step 2 — List candidate commits

git log --oneline "$LAST_TAG"..FETCH_HEAD

Squash-merged PRs end with (#NNNN). Use the PR number to pull the title, URL, and author's GitHub login:

gh pr view <NNNN> --repo react/metro --json title,url,author -q '.author.login + " | " + .url + " | " + .title'

For a direct commit with no PR, link the commit instead: https://github.com/react/metro/commit/<sha>.

Step 3 — Decide which commits to include

Include only observable, public-facing changes. Map each to a label:

Exclude (no changelog entry):

• Meta-internal sync commits — Deploy X.Y.Z to xplat, and anything with no observable OSS effect.
• Flow version upgrades, reformatting, refactors with no behavior change.
• Tests, CI, website/docs-only changes.

Judgment notes:

• One commit can produce multiple entries; one entry can reference multiple related commits/PRs. 1-to-1 is typical.
• Reword commit titles for clarity when needed.
• When unsure whether something is user-facing, lean toward including it (and bumping minor).

Step 4 — Decide the version

Semantic versioning with the major pinned at 0:

• Any breaking change → bump the minor (0.84.4 → 0.85.0).
• Otherwise (fixes, new features, perf, types — all backwards-compatible) → bump the patch (0.84.4 → 0.84.5).

The tag and the release title are both the v-prefixed version, e.g. v0.84.5.

Changes to experimental features are never treated as breaking, even if they break between versions.

Step 5 — Build the release notes

Match the established format exactly. Each entry: - **[Label]**: description (PR-or-commit-URL by @author). Always @-mention the author's GitHub login. If an author has no linked GitHub account, fall back to their full name.

 - **[Feature]**: Support `/[metro-watchFolders]/n/` paths for `.bundle` and `.map` requests (https://github.com/react/metro/pull/1695 by @huntie)
 - **[Fix]**: Treat `import().catch()` as optional under `transformer.allowOptionalDependencies` (https://github.com/react/metro/pull/1697 by @robhogan)
 - **[Performance]**: Interleave resolution attempts with building node_modules candidate paths (https://github.com/react/metro/commit/a817960e5d783c9463173aa84c0245e5864bb5a8 by @kitten)

 **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/react/metro/compare/<LAST_TAG>...<NEW_TAG>

Put experimental entries in a separate list below the main changelog, under this exact disclaimer:

> NOTE: Experimental features are not covered by semver and can change at any time.

 - **[Experimental]**: ... (URL by @author)

Step 6 — Create the draft release (or fall back to a file)

Always write the notes to a file first (preserves Markdown):

NOTES_FILE=/tmp/metro-release-notes.md   # write the changelog here

Then check whether you can actually create the release. You need gh authenticated and write/admin access to react/metro:

gh auth status >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  && gh api repos/react/metro --jq '.permissions.push' 2>/dev/null
# prints "true" only if authenticated with write access

If that prints true — create the draft. The tag does not need to exist yet; for a draft, GitHub creates it on publish.

gh release create <NEW_TAG> \
  --repo react/metro \
  --draft \
  --target main \
  --title <NEW_TAG> \
  --notes-file "$NOTES_FILE"

Print the draft URL from the command output and stop. Do not publish — a human reviews and publishes.

If gh is not authenticated, or push access is missing/false — do not attempt the API call. Fall back to the manual path:

1. Leave the formatted notes in $NOTES_FILE and print its path.
2. Tell the user to open https://github.com/react/metro/releases/new, set the tag to <NEW_TAG>, target main, title <NEW_TAG>, paste the notes, and Save draft (not publish).
3. If gh is installed but unauthenticated, mention they can run ! gh auth login and re-run this skill to automate it; if they lack write access, they need admin/maintainer permission on react/metro first.