Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Introduction

Releasaurus 🦕 is a comprehensive release automation tool that streamlines the software release process across multiple programming languages and Git forge platforms. Designed with simplicity and flexibility in mind, Releasaurus requires minimal configuration through a releasaurus.toml file to specify your project type and provides powerful customization options for advanced use cases.

What is Releasaurus?

Releasaurus automates the entire release workflow, from version detection and changelog generation to creating pull requests and publishing releases. Based on your configuration, it handles version updates across multiple file types for various programming languages and seamlessly integrates with your preferred Git hosting platform.

Key Features

🚀 Simple Configuration

Get started quickly with straightforward configuration. Specify your project’s language type in releasaurus.toml and Releasaurus handles the rest with sensible defaults. Or even skip configuration if you don’t care about updating any version files and only care about tagging and releasing.

🔍 Multi-Language Support

Handles version file updates for Rust, Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, and Ruby projects. Configure your project’s release type once and Releasaurus manages all version files consistently.

🌍 Multi-Platform Support

Works with GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea—whether hosted or self-hosted instances. One tool for all your repositories, regardless of where they’re hosted.

🤖 CI/CD Integration

Complete automation through official integrations:

Automatically create release PRs on push and publish releases when merged—no manual intervention required.

📁 Forge API Integration

Works entirely through forge platform APIs—no local repository cloning required. Analyzes commits, creates branches, and manages releases directly via API calls, making it ideal for CI/CD environments and remote automation.

📦 Multi-Language Support

Native support for:

  • Rust (Cargo.toml)
  • Node.js (package.json, package-lock.json, yarn.lock)
  • Python (pyproject.toml, setup.py, setup.cfg, requirements files)
  • Java (Maven pom.xml, Gradle build files)
  • PHP (composer.json)
  • Ruby (Gemfile, .gemspec files)
  • Generic projects (see additional_manifest_files for version updates)

📝 Smart Changelog Generation

Inspired by git-cliff, automatically generates beautiful changelogs from your commit history with conventional commit support.

🏢 Monorepo Ready

Handle multiple independently-versioned packages within a single repository with per-package configuration and release cycles.

🔧 Flexible Configuration

While it works great with defaults, customize every aspect of the release process through an optional releasaurus.toml configuration file.

How It Works

Releasaurus follows a simple two-step release process:

  1. releasaurus release-pr - Analyzes your commits, determines the next version, updates version files, generates a changelog, and creates a pull request for review.

  2. releasaurus release - After the release PR is merged, creates a Git tag and publishes the release to your forge platform.

This workflow provides a safety net through pull request reviews while automating all the tedious version management tasks.

Why Another Release Tool?

Releasaurus was inspired by excellent tools like git-cliff, release-please, and release-plz, each of which excels in their specific domain. However, we identified key limitations that Releasaurus addresses:

  • release-please only works with GitHub, limiting teams using other platforms
  • release-plz focuses exclusively on Rust projects
  • Existing tools often require extensive configuration for non-standard projects

Releasaurus brings together the best ideas from these tools while providing:

  • Universal platform support - GitHub, GitLab, and Gitea
  • Multi-language support - Works with any programming language or framework
  • Minimal configuration - Intelligent defaults that work immediately
  • Consistent experience - Same workflow regardless of language or platform
  • Flexible commit format - While conventional commits enable version detection, non-conventional commits can still be included in changelogs
  • Non-linear history support - Works with merge-based workflows by filtering merge commits when needed

Credit and Inspiration

We gratefully acknowledge the inspiration and foundation provided by:

Releasaurus builds upon these proven concepts while extending support to a broader ecosystem of languages, frameworks, and platforms.

Getting Started

Ready to automate your releases? Head over to the Installation guide to get started, or jump straight into the Quick Start tutorial to see Releasaurus in action.

Whether you’re maintaining a single-language project or a complex monorepo, Releasaurus adapts to your workflow while maintaining the reliability and safety that production releases demand.