GH Draft Release

Create a draft GitHub release and stop before publishing.

Workflow

1. Confirm release inputs.

• Determine the new release tag (for example v2.1.0).
• Determine the target branch/commit (default to main unless the user specifies otherwise).

2. Verify branch is main and push outstanding commits.

• Check current branch:
  • git branch --show-current
• If branch is not main, stop and report that draft releases must be prepared from main.
• Push main before drafting:
  • git push origin main
• If push fails, stop and report the exact push error.

3. Generate release notes with rt changes.

• Run from the repository root:
  • rt changes --end <target> > /tmp/<new_tag>-notes.md
  • use rt changes --help for options to customize the output.
  • do not use the --summary flag, as the notes will be improved with LLM in the next step.
• The command auto-detects the previous tag when --start is omitted.

4. Impove the generated notes with LLM.

• Update the generated notes file.
• It should begin with a human friendly paragraph summarising key changes.

5. Create or update a draft release with gh.

• Create draft release:
  • gh release create <new_tag> --target <target> --draft --title "<new_tag>" --notes-file /tmp/<new_tag>-notes.md
• If release already exists, update it:
  • gh release edit <new_tag> --draft --title "<new_tag>" --notes-file /tmp/<new_tag>-notes.md

6. Hand off for manual review/publish.

• Report the draft release URL.
• Explicitly state that publishing is left for manual user review.
• Do not run publish commands unless the user explicitly asks.

Output Checklist

• Provide chosen new_tag, previous_tag, and target.
• Provide the exact commit range used for notes.
• Provide the draft release URL.
• Confirm the release remains in draft state.