Git

The Git plugin in release-it, by default, does the following:

Prerequisite checks
[Files may be updated by other plugins and/or user commands/hooks]
git add . --update
git commit -m "[git.commitMessage]"
git tag --annotate --message="[git.tagAnnotation]" [git.tagName]
git push [git.pushArgs] [git.pushRepo]

When not in CI mode, release-it will ask for confirmation before each of the commit, tag, and push steps.

Configure the [git.*] options to modify the commands accordingly. See all options and their default values.

The minimum required version of Git is v2.0.0.

Configuration options

Option	Description
`git.changelog`	Changelog generation command
`git.requireCleanWorkingDir`	Require that all file changes are committed
`git.requireBranch`	Require that the release is on a particular branch name
`git.requireUpstream`	Require that an upstream remote exists.
`git.requireCommits`	Stop the process if there are no commits since the previous release
`git.requireCommitsFail`	If there are no commits, continue but use exit code `0`
`git.commitsPath`	The path to the directory that should be included in the release changes
`git.addUntrackedFiles`	Add untracked files to the release commit
`git.commit`	If `false`, skip the commit release step
`git.commitMessage`	The message to add to the commit step
`git.commitArgs`	Provide extra arguments to `git commit`
`git.tag`	If `false`, skip the tag release step
`git.tagExclude`	Override the normal behavior to find the latest tag
`git.tagName`	Custom tag name, which may not be the same as the (prefixed) version
`git.tagMatch`	Override the normal matching behavior to find the latest tag
`git.getLatestTagFromAllRefs`	Consider all tags (directly reachable or not, sorted by version)
`git.tagAnnotation`	Message string for annotating the Git tag
`git.tagArgs`	Provide extra arguments to `git tag`
`git.push`	If `false`, skip the push release step
`git.pushArgs`	Provided extra arguments to `git push`
`git.pushRepo`	Remote name or Git URL to push the release to (default `origin`)

Git remotes

SSH keys and Git remotes are assumed to be configured correctly. If a manual git push from the command line works, release-it should be able to do the same.

The following help pages might be useful:

Connecting to GitHub with SSH
Managing remote repositories (GitHub)
Configure SSH and two-step verification (Bitbucket)
GitLab and SSH keys

Remote repository

By default, release-it uses branch's tracking information, unless there isn't any, in which case it defaults to "origin" as the remote name to push to. Use git.pushRepo to override this with a different remote name, or a different git url.

Tag Name

Use git.tagName to set a custom tag, not strictly equal to the (prefixed) version. When the latest tag has the v prefix, it will be used again. No need to configure git.tagName: "v${version}" in this case.

Examples:

--git.tagName=${branchName}-${version}
--git.tagName=${repo.project}-${version}
--git.tagName=${npm.name}@${version}

Tag Match

Use git.tagMatch to override the normal matching behavior to find the latest tag. For instance, when doing a major release to find and set the latest major tag, and include all commits in the changelog since this matching tag. Note that this represents a glob (not a regex):

Example: git.tagMatch: "[0-9]*.[0-9]*.[0-9]*"

This could also be useful when using a plugin to determine the next tag:

Example: git.tagMatch: "[0-9][0-9].[0-1][0-9].[0-9]*"

Tag Exclude

Use git.tagExclude to override the normal behavior to find the latest tag. For example when doing a major release and you want to exclude any sort of pre-releases, use *[-]*, as this would exclude everything with a hyphen, which is normally used exclusively in pre-releases.

Example: git.tagExclude: *[-]*

Note that git.tagExclude has no effect when git.getLatestTagFromAllRefs: true. See the next section use all refs to determine latest tag for more details.

Use all refs to determine latest tag

By default, Git determines the latest tag using git describe, which finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit. If you wish to consider all tags, e.g. to include tags that point to sibling commits on different branches, then set git.getLatestTagFromAllRefs: true (the default is false).

In the above illustration, releasing from develop and incrementing the semver rc modifier, when git.getLatestTagFromAllRefs: false (the default), the latest tag is v1.1.0-rc1, because that is the most recent tag reachable from the current commit (the red circle on develop). The version to release will therefore be v1.1.0-rc2.

Setting git.getLatestTagFromAllRefs: true considers all tags (sorting them by version), whether directly reachable or not. In which case, the latest tag is v1.1.0 from main, and the new version to release is v1.2.0-rc1.

Extra arguments

In case extra arguments should be provided to Git, these options are available:

git.commitArgs
git.tagArgs
git.pushArgs

For example, use "git.commitArgs": ["-S"] to sign commits (also see #35).

Note that ["--follow-tags"] is the default for pushArgs (re-add this manually if necessary). Example with multiple arguments for git push:

release-it minor --git.pushArgs=--follow-tags --git.pushArgs=--force

Skip Git steps

To skip the Git steps entirely (for instance, if you only want to npm publish), this shorthand is available:

release-it --no-git

Use e.g. git.tag: false or --no-git.tag to skip a single step.

Untracked files

By default, untracked files are not added to the release commit. Use git.addUntrackedFiles: true to override this behavior.

Prerequisite checks

Required branch

This is disabled by default, but release-it can exit the process when the current branch is not as configured:

{
  "git": {
    "requireBranch": "main"
  }
}

Use an array to allow releases from more branch names. Wildcards are also allowed (e.g. release/*).

Clean working directory

The working directory should be clean (i.e. git status should say something like this:

$ git status
On branch main
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean

Make sure to commit, stash, or revert the changes before running release-it. In case the currently staged changes should be committed with the release commit, use --no-git.requireCleanWorkingDir or configure "git.requireCleanWorkingDir": false.

Upstream branch

If no upstream branch is known to Git, it does not know where to push the release commit and tag to, and halts.

Use --no-git.requireUpstream to add --set-upstream [remote] [branch] to the git push command, where [remote] is the value of git.pushRepo ("origin" by default, if no upstream branch), and [branch] is the name of the current branch. So if the current branch is next then the full command that release-it will execute becomes git push --follow-tags --set-upstream origin next.

Configure pushRepo with either a remote name or a Git url to push the release to that remote instead of origin.

Disabling git.requireUpstream is useful when releasing from a different branch (that is not yet tracking cq present on a remote). Or similar, when releasing a (new) project that did not push to the remote before. Please note that in general you should not need this, as it is considered a best practice to release from the main branch only. Here is an example use case and how it can be handled using release-it:

After a major release (v2), a bug is found and a fix released in v2.0.1.
The fix should be backported to v1, so a branch "v1" is made and the fix is cherry-picked.
The release of v1.x.x can be done while still in this branch using release-it --no-git.requireUpstream.

No commits

By default, release-it does not check the number of commits upfront to prevent "empty" releases. Configure "git.requireCommits": true to exit the release-it process if there are no commits since the latest tag.

Also see the Require Commits recipe(s).

Further customizations

In case you need even more customizations, here is some inspiration:

{
  "git": {
    "commitMessage": "chore(release): cut the v${version} release",
    "push": false
  },
  "hooks": {
    "after:bump": ["npm run build"],
    "after:release": "git push origin HEAD"
  }
}

Since the after:release hook runs after the Git commands, the git.push can be disabled, and replaced by a custom script.

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