Create Draft Release Notes

Create Draft Release Notes

Overview

Create a GitHub draft release, organize the generated notes by conventional commit type, and save the organized body back to the draft. Preserve each release note item exactly; only split accidentally joined bullets, move bullets into sections, and adjust headings.

Draft Release Workflow

Input: a release tag/title such as v2.0.6. If title and tag differ, ask for the tag.

1. Resolve repo as <owner>/<repo>. Prefer an explicit repo from the user. Otherwise infer the current project's main GitHub repository from project metadata or the current GitHub remote. For npm projects, package.json repository is a useful signal; in monorepos, inspect the package or project being released rather than assuming the workspace root. Ignore subdirectory metadata such as repository.directory because GitHub releases are repository-level. If the repo is ambiguous, ask.

2. Set variables:

   repo="<owner>/<repo>"
   release_tag="v2.0.6"
   release_title="$release_tag"
   

3. Verify access and ensure the release does not already exist:

   gh auth status
   gh repo view "$repo" --json nameWithOwner --jq '.nameWithOwner'
   gh release view "$release_tag" -R "$repo" --json tagName,isDraft,url
   

   If the release exists, stop unless the user explicitly asked to update that draft.

4. Infer the previous tag:

   previous_tag="$(gh release list -R "$repo" --exclude-drafts --exclude-pre-releases --limit 1 --json tagName --jq '.[0].tagName')"
   gh release list -R "$repo" --exclude-drafts --exclude-pre-releases --limit 5
   

   Ask for confirmation if the previous tag is missing, surprising, or part of a non-standard range.

5. Before creating anything, state the repo and range: previous_tag -> release_tag. If the user did not explicitly ask to create the draft in this turn, ask for confirmation.

6. Create the draft with GitHub-generated notes:

   gh release create "$release_tag" -R "$repo" --draft --generate-notes --notes-start-tag "$previous_tag" --title "$release_title"
   

   Add --verify-tag when the release must use an existing remote tag.

7. Organize and save the draft body:

   tmp_dir="$(mktemp -d)"
   gh release view "$release_tag" -R "$repo" --json body --jq '.body' > "$tmp_dir/generated.md"
   node .agents/skills/create-draft-release-notes/scripts/create-draft-release-notes.mjs "$tmp_dir/generated.md" > "$tmp_dir/organized.md"
   gh release edit "$release_tag" -R "$repo" --draft --title "$release_title" --notes-file "$tmp_dir/organized.md"
   

8. Return the draft URL:

   gh release view "$release_tag" -R "$repo" --json url --jq '.url'
   

Markdown-Only Workflow

Use this when the user provides generated release note Markdown and only wants it organized:

node .agents/skills/create-draft-release-notes/scripts/create-draft-release-notes.mjs release-notes.md

Omit the file path to read from stdin. Review that every original item still appears once and non-item sections remain.

Categories

Emit non-empty sections in this order:

1. ### Breaking Changes 🍭
2. ### New Features 🎉
3. ### Performance 🚀
4. ### Bug Fixes 🐞
5. ### Refactor 🔨
6. ### Document 📖
7. ### Other Changes

Classify by the item prefix:

• Breaking Changes: type!: or type(scope)!:, plus breaking: / break:.
• New Features: feat: / feat(scope):, plus feature:.
• Performance: perf:.
• Bug Fixes: fix:.
• Refactor: refactor:.
• Document: docs: / docs(scope):, plus doc:.
• Other Changes: everything else.

Keep each category in generated top-to-bottom order.

Preservation Rules

• Do not rewrite bullet text, authors, URLs, PR numbers, package names, scopes, punctuation, or casing.
• Do not drop comments, **Full Changelog**, or other non-item sections.
• Do not add commentary to the release note itself.
• Do not emit empty category sections.

Resources

• scripts/create-draft-release-notes.mjs: deterministic formatter for generated release note Markdown.

Source: web-infra-dev/rspack — distributed by TomeVault.