Managing releases in a repository

You can create releases to bundle and deliver iterations of a project to users.

Repository collaborators and people with write access to a repository can create, edit, and delete a release.

About release management

You can also publish an action from a specific release in GitHub Marketplace. For more information, see "Publishing an action in the GitHub Marketplace."

You can choose whether Git Large File Storage (Git LFS) objects are included in the ZIP files and tarballs that GitHub creates for each release. For more information, see "Managing Git LFS objects in archives of your repository."

Tip: You can also manage releases using the GitHub CLI. For more information, see "gh release" in the GitHub CLI documentation.

Creating a release

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. To the right of the list of files, click Releases or Latest release. Releases section in right-hand sidebar

  3. Click Draft a new release. Releases draft button

  4. Type a version number for your release. Versions are based on Git tags. We recommend naming tags that fit within semantic versioning. Releases tagged version

  5. Use the drop-down menu to select the branch that contains the project you want to release. Releases tagged branch

  6. Type a title and description for your release. Releases description

  7. Optionally, to include binary files such as compiled programs in your release, drag and drop or manually select files in the binaries box. Providing a DMG with the Release

  8. To notify users that the release is not ready for production and may be unstable, select This is a pre-release. Checkbox to mark a release as prerelease

  9. Optionally, select Create a discussion for this release, then select the Category drop-down menu and click a category for the release discussion. Checkbox to create a release discussion and drop-down menu to choose a category

  10. If you're ready to publicize your release, click Publish release. To work on the release later, click Save draft. Publish release and Draft release buttons

You can also automatically create a release from the command line or in a script. For more information, see "Releases."

Editing a release

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. To the right of the list of files, click Releases or Latest release. Releases section in right-hand sidebar

  3. On the right side of the page, next to the release you want to edit, click Edit release. Edit a release

  4. Edit the details for the release in the form, then click Update release. Update a release

Deleting a release

You must remove all binary files attached to a release before you can delete a release.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. To the right of the list of files, click Releases or Latest release. Releases section in right-hand sidebar

  3. Click the name of the release you wish to delete. Link to view release

  4. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Delete. Delete release button

  5. Click Delete this release. Confirm delete release

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