Releases & Tags
📌 Covered in this chapter:
git tag · Semantic Versioning · Creating a GitHub Release · Changelogs
Mark meaningful points in your project's history using Git tags, and publish them as GitHub Releases with notes.
1Releases & Tags — What You'll Learn
Mark meaningful points in your project's history using Git tags, and publish them as GitHub Releases with notes.
Here's everything this chapter covers, in the order you'll learn it:
- What a Git tag is
- Lightweight tags vs annotated tags
- Semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH)
- Creating a GitHub release from a tag
- Writing release notes
- Marking a release as a pre-release
- Maintaining a changelog
- Viewing version history
- Attaching release assets (binaries, build artifacts)
2Working Example
💻 Example: Releases & Tags
Bash
git tag -a v1.0.0 -m "First stable release"
git push origin v1.0.03Best Practices & Common Pitfalls
💡 Key things to remember:
- Semantic versioning (v1.2.3) signals intent: MAJOR = breaking changes, MINOR = new backward-compatible features, PATCH = bug fixes — following it helps consumers of your project know what to expect from an upgrade.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q What's the most important thing to understand about releases & tags?
Focus on: git tag · Semantic Versioning · Creating a GitHub Release · Changelogs. These are the core building blocks this chapter's examples are built around, and they show up repeatedly in later chapters of this course.
Q Is releases & tags something I'll use often in real projects?
Yes — every concept in this chapter reflects a real, everyday part of professional Git and GitHub workflows, not just a theoretical exercise.