Release-please — Automated Release Management by Google

Introduction

Release-please automates CHANGELOG generation, version bumps, and GitHub releases based on conventional commit messages. Maintained by Google, it opens release PRs that, when merged, create tagged releases.

What Release-please Does

• Parses conventional commits (feat, fix, chore) to determine semantic version bumps
• Generates and maintains CHANGELOG.md from commit history
• Opens release PRs bundling pending changes with updated versions
• Creates GitHub releases with notes when release PRs merge
• Supports monorepos with independent or linked versioning per package

Architecture Overview

Release-please runs as a Node.js CLI or GitHub Action. It reads commits since the last release tag, categorizes them via the Conventional Commits spec, calculates the next version, and generates a release PR. A manifest file tracks per-package release types and strategies with pluggable support for Node, Python, Java, Go, Ruby, and more.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Install via npm or use the GitHub Action (googleapis/release-please-action)
• Set release-type per package in release-please-config.json
• Track versions in .release-please-manifest.json for monorepos
• Use --target-branch for release trains or maintenance branches
• Map commit types to changelog headings in the config file

Key Features

• 20+ release strategies for different language ecosystems
• Monorepo support with per-component and cross-component dependency updates
• Customizable commit type to changelog section mapping
• Linked versions for groups of packages sharing a version number
• Plugin system for custom versioning and changelog formatting

Comparison with Similar Tools

• semantic-release — Fully automated on push; release-please adds a PR review step before publishing
• standard-version — Deprecated predecessor; release-please is CI-native and actively maintained
• changesets — Requires manual changeset files; release-please infers changes from commits
• GoReleaser — Go-specific; release-please is language-agnostic and focuses on versioning

FAQ

Q: Does release-please publish packages to npm or PyPI? A: No. It handles versioning, changelogs, and GitHub releases. Add separate CI steps for publishing.

Q: Can I use it without conventional commits? A: No. Conventional commits are required for automatic version bump detection.

Q: How does monorepo support work? A: Configure each package path in release-please-config.json with its own release type. Versions are tracked independently per component.

Q: What if multiple features merge before the release PR? A: All unreleased commits accumulate into a single release PR with the appropriate version bump.

Sources

• https://github.com/googleapis/release-please
• https://github.com/googleapis/release-please-action