RELEASE.md
# Release
Releases are mostly automated using
[release-it](https://github.com/release-it/release-it/) and
[lerna-changelog](https://github.com/lerna/lerna-changelog/).
## Preparation
Since the majority of the actual release process is automated, the primary
remaining task prior to releasing is confirming that all pull requests that
have been merged since the last release have been labeled with the appropriate
`lerna-changelog` labels and the titles have been updated to ensure they
represent something that would make sense to our users. Some great information
on why this is important can be found at
[keepachangelog.com](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/), but the overall
guiding principles here is that changelogs are for humans, not machines.
When reviewing merged PR's the labels to be used are:
* breaking - Used when the PR is considered a breaking change.
* enhancement - Used when the PR adds a new feature or enhancement.
* bug - Used when the PR fixes a bug included in a previous release.
* documentation - Used when the PR adds or updates documentation.
* internal - Used for internal changes that still require a mention in the
changelog/release notes.
## Release
Once the prep work is completed, the actual release is straight forward:
* First ensure that you have `release-it` installed globally, generally done by
using one of the following commands:
```
# using https://volta.sh
volta install release-it
# using Yarn
yarn global add release-it
# using npm
npm install --global release-it
```
* Second, ensure that you're exporting github access tokens locally:
* `GITHUB_TOKEN` ([for release-it](https://github.com/release-it/release-it#github-releases))
* `GITHUB_AUTH` ([for lerna](https://github.com/lerna/lerna-changelog#github-token))
* Third, ensure that you have installed your project's dependencies:
```
# using yarn
yarn install
# using npm
npm install
```
* And last (but not least 😁) do your release:
```
release-it
```
[release-it](https://github.com/release-it/release-it/) manages the actual
release process. It will prompt you through the process of choosing the version
number, tagging, pushing the tag and commits, etc.