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releez — make releases ez

CI PyPI version License: MIT

releez is a CLI tool that takes the friction out of semantic versioned releases. It automates the repetitive parts — bumping versions, writing changelogs, opening release PRs, creating git tags — so you can ship without the ceremony.

Under the hood it uses git-cliff for versioning logic and changelog generation. You bring a cliff.toml; releez handles the rest.

What it does

Task Command
Start a release PR releez release start
Preview what will be released releez release preview
Generate release notes releez release notes
Create git tags after merge releez release tag
Compute artifact versions for CI releez version artifact
Regenerate the full changelog releez changelog regenerate

Key features

  • Auto version bumping — git-cliff analyses your commit history and computes the next semver automatically, or you can pin it with --bump patch|minor|major.
  • Changelog management — Prepends the new release section to your changelog file and optionally runs format hooks (e.g. Prettier, dprint).
  • GitHub PR workflow — Creates a release branch, commits the changelog, opens a PR. Merge the PR; run release tag (or use the Action) to ship.
  • Artifact versions — Computes semver / Docker / PEP 440 version strings for prerelease and full-release builds. Ideal for CI pipelines.
  • Monorepo support — Multiple independently-versioned projects in one repo, each with its own changelog, tags, and release PRs.
  • GitHub Action — Composite action that installs the matching CLI version and handles validate, finalize, and version-artifact modes.

Install

uv tool install releez

Or pin it in your project:

uv add --dev releez

Requires Python 3.11+ and git-cliff on PATH (or installed via uv).

Quick start

  1. Add a cliff.toml at your repo root (see git-cliff docs).
  2. Run releez release start — it detects the next version, updates your changelog, and opens a release PR.
  3. Review the PR, merge it, then run releez release tag (or let the GitHub Action do it automatically).

Documentation

Configuration

  • Settings — Precedence, all settings, env vars, TOML examples
  • Hooks — Post-changelog hooks, template variables, migration guide

GitHub Actions

Commands

Monorepo