Release management with changelog generation, semantic versioning, and readiness checks. TRIGGER when: user asks to prepare a release, generate a changelog, bump version, check release readiness, or create a release tag; user runs /release or /changelog. DO NOT TRIGGER when: writing commit messages (use conventional commits directly), deploying to infrastructure, debugging production issues.

Release Skill

End-to-end release management: parse conventional commits, determine the version bump, generate a changelog, run readiness checks, and create the release.

Workflow

Parse commits -- Collect commits since last release tag. Classify by type. See conventional-commits.md.
Determine version bump -- Apply SemVer rules: BREAKING CHANGE -> major, feat -> minor, everything else -> patch.
Generate changelog -- Group changes by category, write user-meaningful descriptions. See changelog-template.md.
Readiness checks -- Validate pre-release conditions. See readiness-checklist.md.
Verify -- Run the full test suite on the exact commit being tagged. Show the output. Do not tag a commit you have not tested in this session.
Create release -- Tag the commit, push tag, create GitHub release with changelog body.

Version Bump Logic

Current: 2.3.1
Commits since v2.3.1:
  feat: add search API         -> minor
  fix: correct pagination      -> patch
  feat!: redesign auth flow    -> major (BREAKING)

Result: BREAKING wins -> v3.0.0

When multiple bump types conflict, the highest wins: major > minor > patch.

Output Format

Release: v3.0.0 (from v2.3.1)
Bump reason: BREAKING CHANGE in auth flow redesign
Changelog: 2 features, 1 fix, 0 breaking migration notes
Readiness: 8/9 checks passed (WARN: no stakeholder sign-off)
Action: Tag and push? [y/n]

What You Get

A semantically versioned release tag with the correct bump (major/minor/patch) derived from conventional commits
A generated changelog grouped by category (features, fixes, breaking changes) with user-meaningful descriptions
A readiness report showing which pre-release checks passed or failed, with warnings for anything unresolved

Sub-files

File	Content
conventional-commits.md	Commit types, SemVer mapping, linting
changelog-template.md	Changelog format, grouping, quality checks
readiness-checklist.md	Pre-release validation, DORA, rollback