Release Process

Release Process

Docklift uses semantic-release to fully automate versioning, changelogs, and GitHub Releases.

How It Works

Push to master → Run "Release & Test" workflow → semantic-release handles everything

Pipeline Steps (automatic)

1. Runs tests via test-ubuntu.yml
2. Analyzes commit messages to determine version bump
3. Bumps package.json in root, frontend, and backend
4. Updates CHANGELOG.md
5. Commits bumped files back to master: chore(release): X.Y.Z [skip ci]
6. Creates git tag vX.Y.Z
7. Creates GitHub Release with generated notes

Key Files

Commit Convention

Commits must follow Conventional Commits format:

type(scope): description

Release Rules (from release.config.cjs)

Note: ALL commit types trigger a patch release. This is intentional — Docklift treats every commit type as release-worthy.

Examples

# Standard commits
git commit -m "fix(deploy): use fetch+reset instead of git pull"
git commit -m "feat(logs): add search functionality to log viewer"
git commit -m "docs: update README with release instructions"

# Force a minor release
git commit -m "feat(api): add new endpoint *force minor*"

# Skip release entirely
git commit -m "chore: update comments *skip release*"

How to Release

# 1. Commit your changes with conventional messages
git add -A
git commit -m "fix(deploy): description of change"

# 2. Push to master
git push origin master

# 3. Go to GitHub → Actions → "Release & Test" → Run workflow
# semantic-release does everything else automatically

Version Bump Strategy

The @semantic-release/exec plugin bumps versions in sub-packages:

npm version X.Y.Z --no-git-tag-version --allow-same-version --prefix frontend
npm version X.Y.Z --no-git-tag-version --allow-same-version --prefix backend

The @semantic-release/npm plugin bumps the root package.json.

The @semantic-release/git plugin commits these files back:

• CHANGELOG.md
• package.json, package-lock.json
• frontend/package.json, frontend/package-lock.json
• backend/package.json, backend/package-lock.json

GitHub Token

The workflow uses secrets.GH_TOKEN (not the default GITHUB_TOKEN) to allow semantic-release to push commits back to master. This must be a Personal Access Token with repo scope.

Troubleshooting

DO NOT Use bumpp

The project previously used bumpp for manual version bumping. Do not use bumpp — it conflicts with semantic-release by creating tags that semantic-release doesn't expect. Let semantic-release handle all versioning.

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