Manage releases with GitHub repos

  • 4 minutes

Part of the release process starts with your version control. You'll learn how to manage releases in repositories using GitHub.

In later modules, you'll see details about deploying software after packaging your code, binary files, release notes, and related tasks.

Releases in GitHub are based on Git tags. You can think of a tag as a snapshot of your repository's current state. When you need to mark an important milestone in your code or when your next deliverable code is ready, you can create a tag and use it during the build and release process to package and deploy that specific version. For more information, see Viewing your repository's releases and tags.

When creating new releases with release notes, you can @mention contributors, add links to binary files, and edit or delete existing releases.

Screenshot of release notes from GitHub.

Image reference: Releases ยท Microsoft/azure-pipelines-agent (github.com)

You can also:

  • Publish an action from a specific release in GitHub Marketplace
  • Choose whether Git LFS objects are included in the ZIP files and tarballs GitHub creates for each release
  • Receive notifications when new releases are published in a repository

Creating a release

To create a release, use the gh release create command. Replace tag with the desired tag name for the release and follow the interactive prompts.

gh release create tag

To create a prerelease with a specific title and notes:

gh release create v1.2.1 --title

If you @mention any GitHub users in the notes, the published release on GitHub.com will include a Contributors section with an avatar list of all the mentioned users.

You can check other commands and arguments from the GitHub CLI manual.

Editing a release

You can't edit releases with GitHub CLI.

To edit, use the web browser:

  1. Go to the main repository page on GitHub.com
  2. Click Releases to the right of the list of files
  3. Click the edit icon on the right side of the page, next to the release you want to edit
  4. Edit the details for the release, then click Update release

Deleting a release

To delete a release, use the following command. Replace tag with the release tag to delete, and use the -y flag to skip confirmation.

gh release delete tag -y

For more information, see: