Release Process

ashell uses cargo-dist (v0.30.0) for automated release builds and GitHub Releases.

Note: Releases are managed by the project maintainer (@MalpenZibo). This page documents the process for reference.

How a Release Works

Draft release notes: The release-drafter.yml workflow automatically drafts release notes based on merged PRs. The maintainer reviews and edits the draft in GitHub Releases.
Publish the release: The maintainer publishes the drafted release (e.g., tag v0.11.0). This triggers pre-release.yml, which:
- Prepends the release notes to CHANGELOG.md
- Sets the Cargo version with cargo set-version
- Freezes the website docs version (docusaurus docs:version)
- Commits and pushes to main, moves the tag to the new commit
- Triggers the Release workflow (release.yml) with the tag
The Release workflow can also be run manually via Actions → Release → Run workflow.
Automated pipeline: The release workflow:
- Runs dist plan to determine build matrix
- Builds platform-specific artifacts (Linux binary + archives)
- Builds global artifacts (shell installer)
- Generates .deb and .rpm packages via generate-installers.yml, then installs each one in clean ubuntu:24.04, debian:trixie and fedora:latest containers and runs ashell --version. A package that fails to install blocks the release.
- Uploads all artifacts to the GitHub Release
- Un-drafts the release
Post-release: Downstream packaging jobs run automatically:
- update-arch-package.yml (currently a placeholder that only prints a message)
- remove-manifest-assets.yml cleans up dist manifests from the release

dist-workspace.toml configures the release build:

[workspace]
members = ["cargo:."]

[dist]
cargo-dist-version = "0.30.0"
ci = "github"
installers = ["shell"]
targets = ["x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"]

To test the release process without actually publishing, the maintainer can: