Modular Release Pipelines

When to Use This Skill

This guide covers implementing release automation with:

• Release-please for version bumping and changelog generation
• GitHub App authentication for proper workflow triggering
• Change detection to skip unnecessary builds
• Cascade rebuilds when shared dependencies change

flowchart LR
    subgraph release[Release Pipeline]
        Main[Push to Main] --> AppToken[GitHub App Token]
        AppToken --> RP[Release-Please]
        RP --> PR[Creates PR]
    end

    subgraph build[Build Pipeline]
        PR -->|pull_request event| DC[Detect Changes]
        DC --> Test[Test]
        Test --> Build[Build]
        Build --> Status[Build Status]
    end

    %% Ghostty Hardcore Theme
    style Main fill:#65d9ef,color:#1b1d1e
    style AppToken fill:#9e6ffe,color:#1b1d1e
    style RP fill:#9e6ffe,color:#1b1d1e
    style PR fill:#fd971e,color:#1b1d1e
    style DC fill:#fd971e,color:#1b1d1e
    style Test fill:#9e6ffe,color:#1b1d1e
    style Build fill:#a7e22e,color:#1b1d1e
    style Status fill:#5e7175,color:#f8f8f3

Prerequisites

Before implementing release pipelines, set up a GitHub App for your organization:

• GitHub App Setup - Create and configure the App
• Token Generation - Generate tokens in workflows

Implementation

1. Set up GitHub App for your organization
2. Configure release-please with App token
3. Set up change detection for your components
4. Handle protected branches if applicable

Examples

See examples.md for code examples.

Related Patterns

• GitHub App Setup
• Idempotency Patterns
• Three-Stage Design

References

• Source Documentation
• AEL Build