# Working in this repository

`master` releases itself. Every push runs `.gitea/workflows/release.yml`, which
reads the commit subjects since the last tag, bumps `package.json`, prepends
`CHANGELOG.md`, tags `vX.Y.Z`, and publishes the Gitea release with those
subjects as the body.

## Commit subjects are release input

The subject is both the version decision and the sentence a user reads in the
release notes. Write it for that reader:

- `feat: …` — the change adds a capability. Minor bump: `0.1.0` → `0.2.0`.
- `feat!: …` or `fix(x)!: …` — the change breaks an existing install. Major
  bump: `0.1.0` → `1.0.0`, and the note lands under **Breaking**. `[major]`
  anywhere in the subject does the same when a `!` will not fit.
- `fix: …`, `docs: …`, or a plain sentence — everything else. Patch bump:
  `0.1.0` → `0.1.1`.
- `[skip release]` — this push publishes nothing.

`feat` has to be a word, so `Fix the feature flag leak` is a patch. Only the
subject line is read; the body is not.

## Commit as the work lands

Commit each step as soon as it is finished rather than leaving it in the tree
until the end. Two reasons, and the second is the one that bites:

- An uncommitted change has no release note at all. The subject is the sentence a
  user reads, so work that never becomes a commit never becomes a sentence.
- A tree carrying four unrelated changes cannot be split into four honest
  subjects after the fact — the reasoning behind each one is only in the
  transcript by then, and the range picks its bump from whatever subjects it
  ends up with. One `feat:` batched in with a handful of fixes is a minor bump
  for all of them.

Keep a subject to one change and the version follows from it.

A commit here is local. Pushing to `master` is what releases, so it stays a
separate, deliberate step.

## The release job owns the version and the changelog

`package.json`'s `version` and `CHANGELOG.md` are the job's to write, derived
from the commits. Pushing to `master` is the whole trigger — the tag and the
release come with it.

## Checking before pushing

```sh
npm run release:plan     # would this HEAD release? (yes/no)
npm run release:notes    # the exact notes it would publish
npm run test:release     # the checks behind the bump and the notes
```

The rules in full — the marker table, first-release behaviour, how prose commits
are handled — are in the README under *Releases*.