Relsr

relsr is a command line tool for GitHub release management.

If you use GitHub labels to identify features that are ready to be shipped, you can use relsr to manage your release workflow.

relsr connects to the GitHub API and finds all open issues with a given label (configurable). Then, using those issues numbers it pulls toggether all feature branches that have #issue-no in the branch name and merges them into a new release branch. relsr can also create a pull request for the release.

In order to use relsr, you will need to follow the Relsr Workflow:

• feature branches and bug fixes must all have branched from master.
• feature branche names have to contain a hash followed by the issue number, e.g. feature/#1234-super-cool-feature
• when features are finished, the feature branch can be merged into develop for manual testing / acceptance.
• once a feature has been accepted it is given a GitHub lable that identifies it as being ready to deploy.
• now you can use relsr to build a release branch from accepted issues.

Install the gem as follows:

gem install relsr

Then, in your project folder run the initializer:

relsr init

This will create a file called .relsr.yml in the current folder which you will need to edit. Here is an example:

---
repo: 'CreatekIo/my-app'
label: 'status: deploying'

relsr uses settings from your .netrc file to connect to GitHub. If you have not already done so, create a GutHub Personal Access Token and enter the details into your .netrc file:

machine api.github.com
  login github_username
  password personal_access_token

To confirm that you have configured everything correctly you can perform a dry-run like so:

relsr release -d

If all is well you should see something like this:

Creating release branch 'release/20170704-205514' on 'jcleary/relsr'...done
Merging 'feature/#1234-super-cool-feature' into release...done
Merging 'feature/#5678-tricky-bug-fix' into release...done
Creating Pull Request...done

Once you are ready, you can create the branch and pull request:

relsr release

I sometimes push directly to develop, but these commits are not being deployed, what should I do?

You can either cherry-pick the commits into your next release or into a feature branch that is about to be release.

I've got a branch that I want to be included in the next release, but it does not belong to a ticket, how can I include it?

The easiest way is to use the -add option for adding branches, e.g.:

relst release --add hotfix/server-config

I have a branch that receives commits from an external service (such as a translation management tool). Is it possible to include this branch in every release?

Yes. You can update the relsr.yml file and include the name of the branch (or branches) in the add_branches: section, e.g.

repo: CreatekIo/my-app
lable: 'status: deploying'
add_branches:
  - i18n/updates
  - another_branch

Enjoy!