GitHub - makisp/releasejet: Automated release notes from issues and PRs between Git tags. Supports GitLab and GitHub.

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ReleaseJet

ReleaseJet — the release notes tool for repos with many customers (and for teams that never adopted Conventional Commits).

ReleaseJet demo

Collects labeled issues (or merged pull requests) between Git tags, categorizes them, and publishes formatted release notes. First-class support for multi-customer repos (one codebase, per-customer tag tracks) on GitHub and GitLab. No Conventional Commits required — your team already labels issues; that's all we need.

See it live: releasejet-demo-multi-customer — three customer tracks, real published release pages, zero hand-editing.

Full documentation: releasejet.dev/docs

Features

  • GitLab and GitHub support — both providers out of the box
  • Issues or Pull Requests — closed issues (default) or merged PRs (GitHub)
  • Multi-client repos (e.g., mobile-v1.0.0, web-v2.0.0)
  • Configurable categories — map labels to sections
  • Issue/PR description extraction — render the first paragraph beneath each title
  • Jira ticket linking — inline links to PROJ-123 IDs detected in titles/bodies, no API calls
  • CI/CD integration — GitLab CI and GitHub Actions
  • Strict/lenient modes, milestone detection, contributors section

ReleaseJet has a paid tier with additional features (notifications, AI-powered summaries, custom templates). See releasejet.dev for details.

Quick Start

npm install -g @makispps/releasejet
releasejet init                        # interactive setup
releasejet generate --tag v1.0.0       # preview
releasejet generate --tag v1.0.0 --publish

Notification channels

Manage notification channels in .releasejet.yml without hand-editing:

releasejet notifications add                              # interactive wizard
releasejet notifications add --type slack --env SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL --enabled
releasejet notifications list                             # table of configured channels

add only ever writes the env-var reference (e.g. ${SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL}) — never a literal webhook URL. list resolves each referenced var at runtime and shows set / unset / n/a in the ENV column. Both commands work in core; channel delivery requires the paid tier — see releasejet.dev for details.

Configuration

See the configuration reference for every field. Minimal .releasejet.yml:

provider:
  type: github
categories:
  feature: "New Features"
  bug: "Bug Fixes"

Optional top-level projectName: overrides the project name shown in notification cards. Defaults to the last path segment of projectUrl.

Issue / PR descriptions

By default, release notes show only issue/PR titles. To also render the first paragraph of each item's body underneath its title, set:

in .releasejet.yml. The cleaner strips leading HTML comments and ## Description-style headers, takes the first paragraph, collapses whitespace, and truncates to ~200 characters with an ellipsis. Items with empty bodies (or bodies that contain only headers/comments) render as before — title only, no placeholder.

Before (default, description: none):

- Fix login redirect bug (#142)

After (description: extract):

- Fix login redirect bug (#142)
  - Users were redirected to /login instead of their target after SSO callback…

The description: ai value is reserved for AI-summarised descriptions on the paid tier and is treated as none in core. See releasejet.dev for details.

Jira ticket linking

When your team puts Jira ticket IDs in PR/issue titles or descriptions (e.g., "Fix login PROJ-123"), ReleaseJet can detect them and render clickable links beside each issue line in the release notes — without calling the Jira API.

jira:
  baseUrl: https://acme.atlassian.net
  projects: [PROJ, BUG]

Output line:

- Fix login (#42) — [PROJ-123](https://acme.atlassian.net/browse/PROJ-123)

baseUrl accepts ${ENV_VAR} references for self-hosted Jira instances. projects is a required allowlist that prevents false positives like HTTP-2 or IPV-6.

CI/CD

GitHub Action on the Marketplace — marketplace/actions/releasejet. Five-line setup:

- uses: makisp/releasejet@v1
  with:
    tag: ${{ github.ref_name }}
    token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Raw setup recipes: GitHub Actions · GitLab CI

Authentication

ReleaseJet looks up your provider API token in this order. The first match wins:

  1. RELEASEJET_TOKEN environment variable (universal — works for both GitLab and GitHub).
  2. Provider-specific environment variable: GITHUB_TOKEN (for GitHub) or GITLAB_API_TOKEN (for GitLab).
  3. Per-repo entry in ~/.releasejet/credentials.yml, keyed as <host>/<projectPath> (e.g. gitlab.com/myorg/api).
  4. Host entry in ~/.releasejet/credentials.yml, keyed by host (e.g. gitlab.com, company.gitlab.com).
  5. Legacy provider-type entry (gitlab: or github:) — kept indefinitely as a fallback for hosts that don't have an explicit host entry.
  6. The pre-YAML bare-text file ~/.releasejet/credentials (legacy format, still supported).

Host keys are case-insensitive and default ports (80, 443) are stripped. Non-default ports are preserved (e.g. gitlab.example.com:8443).

Example credentials.yml

gitlab.com: glpat-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa             # default for gitlab.com repos
company.gitlab.com: glpat-bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb         # different host
github.com: ghp_cccccccccccccccccccc               # default for github.com
gitlab.com/personal/sideproject: glpat-dddd        # per-repo override

Managing tokens

The interactive releasejet init flow stores a token under the configured host. Once set, manage tokens directly with the auth subcommands:

releasejet auth set-token              # prompts; uses the current repo's host
releasejet auth set-token --host company.gitlab.com
releasejet auth set-token --repo gitlab.com/myorg/api

releasejet auth list-tokens            # show every stored token (masked)
releasejet auth list-tokens --show-tokens

releasejet auth show-token             # explain which token resolves for the current repo
releasejet auth show-token gitlab.com/myorg/api

releasejet auth remove-token --host gitlab.com
releasejet auth remove-token --repo gitlab.com/myorg/api
releasejet auth remove-token --legacy gitlab    # remove a legacy provider-type entry

releasejet auth migrate-tokens         # interactive: move legacy gitlab/github keys to host keys

show-token is the diagnostic to reach for when "the wrong token is being used." It prints every step in the lookup chain — env vars, repo key, host key, legacy key, bare-text file — and marks which one was used.

For CI, set RELEASEJET_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN, or GITLAB_API_TOKEN as a secret — env vars always win over the file.

Troubleshooting

Common issues:

  • "API token not found" — set RELEASEJET_TOKEN as env or via releasejet init. Full guide.
  • "Tag not found in remote repository" — push the tag first: git push origin <tag>.
  • "Invalid tag format" — see tag formats.

Full troubleshooting · All commands

License

MIT