releaser

A CI-friendly release automation tool for GitFlow workflows using Conventional Commits.

Problem

Standard tools like semantic-release are designed for trunk-based development. In a GitFlow setup with versioned release branches (release/1.1, release/1.2), they either fail to respect the branch's version range or require brittle configuration.

releaser is built for this exact workflow: it reads the branch name to pin the major.minor, parses Conventional Commits to determine the patch increment, and handles everything from pom.xml update to GitLab tag+release creation.

How it works

release/1.2 branch
  └─ last tag: v1.2.3 (or none → start at v1.2.0)
       └─ commits since tag → Conventional Commits analysis
            └─ next version: v1.2.4

1. Branch parsing — extracts major.minor from branch name (e.g. release/1.2 → 1.2)
2. Tag discovery — finds the latest tag matching major.minor.* on the current branch
3. Commit analysis — parses Conventional Commits between last tag and HEAD
4. Version bump — increments patch (the minor is owned by the branch)
5. Release — updates pom.xml, commits, tags, creates GitLab release

Version bump rules

Commit type	Bump	Notes
fix:	patch
feat:	patch	minor is pinned to branch
feat!: / BREAKING CHANGE	patch	same — branch defines the minor boundary
chore:, docs:, etc.	none
unparseable msg	none	non-strict mode: silently ignored

Usage

# Scaffold a default .releaser.yml in the current repository
releaser --init

# Simulate next version (no side effects)
releaser --dry-run

# Full release: update pom.xml + CHANGELOG.md, commit, tag, push, GitLab release
releaser

# Commit and tag locally — skip push and GitLab release
releaser --no-push

# Push commit and tag but skip creating the GitLab release
releaser --no-release

# Update files but stop before committing (review first)
releaser --no-commit
# … then commit manually and re-run:
releaser --tag-only

# Explicitly target a branch (useful in detached HEAD CI)
releaser --branch release/1.2

# Write changelog to a custom file
releaser --changelog-file CHANGES.md

# Show configuration sources, commit list, and version decision
releaser --verbose --dry-run

# Target a specific pom.xml
releaser --pom path/to/pom.xml

# Override tag prefix from CLI (empty = no prefix)
releaser --tag-prefix ""

# Override branch pattern (e.g. also match hotfix/ branches)
releaser --branch-pattern "^(?:.*/)?(?:release|hotfix)/(\d+)\.(\d+)$"

Configuration

releaser reads .releaser.yml from the repository root. All fields are optional — missing values fall back to the defaults shown below.

git:
  tag_prefix: ""                                     # default: no prefix; set to "v" for v-prefixed tags
  branch_pattern: "^(?:.*/)?release/(\\d+)\\.(\\d+)$"  # two capture groups: major, minor
  commit_message: "chore(release): {version} [skip ci]"
  author_name: ""                                    # defaults to git config user.name
  author_email: ""                                   # defaults to git config user.email

maven:
  pom_path: "pom.xml"                                # relative to repo root

gitlab:
  url: "https://gitlab.example.com"                  # or env CI_SERVER_URL
  token: ""                                          # env GITLAB_TOKEN (never commit this)
  project: ""                                        # env CI_PROJECT_ID or CI_PROJECT_PATH

Environment variables

GitLab-related fields are automatically read from the CI environment if not set in the config file:

Variable	Used for
GITLAB_TOKEN	API auth + HTTPS push auth
CI_SERVER_URL	GitLab instance URL
CI_PROJECT_ID	Project identifier (numeric)
CI_PROJECT_PATH	Project identifier (fallback)

CI integration (GitLab CI example)

release:
  stage: release
  image: registry.example.com/releaser:latest
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH =~ /^release\/.+$/
  variables:
    GITLAB_TOKEN: $RELEASE_TOKEN   # project/group CI variable with api + write_repository scope
  script:
    - releaser