autorelease

Automated semantic versioning and release notification pipeline for a SaaS product with a Go backend and Svelte frontend, hosted on GitHub.

How It Works

Every time a PR is merged to main, the release process is fully automated:

1. release-please detects conventional commits and opens a Release PR
2. Team reviews and merges the Release PR
3. A Git tag is created (backend-vX.Y.Z or frontend-vX.Y.Z)
4. Deploy workflows trigger on the tag
5. Customer email notification is sent via Loops/Resend
6. In-app "What's New" banner updates automatically

Branch Strategy

feature/* → dev → main

• All feature work targets dev
• dev → main merges trigger release-please
• Direct commits to main are not allowed

Versioning

Backend and frontend are versioned independently using Conventional Commits.

Examples

feat(auth): add OAuth2 login
fix(api): correct null pointer dereference
feat!: redesign payment flow

Repository Structure

repo/
├── backend/                    # Go
│   ├── version.go
│   └── CHANGELOG.md
├── frontend/                   # Svelte
│   ├── package.json
│   ├── vite.config.js
│   ├── src/lib/WhatsNew.svelte
│   └── CHANGELOG.md
└── .github/
    └── workflows/
        ├── release.yml         # release-please
        ├── deploy-backend.yml  # triggers on backend-v* tags
        ├── deploy-frontend.yml # triggers on frontend-v* tags
        ├── notify-release.yml  # customer email on release publish
        └── pr-lint.yml         # enforce conventional commit PR titles

Release Notification Flow

PR merged to main
      ↓
release-please opens Release PR
      ↓
Release PR merged → GitHub Release created
      ↓
notify-release.yml fires
      ↓
Customer email (Loops/Resend) — feat: entries only
      ↓
In-app "What's New" banner (fetches GitHub Releases API)

Setup

Secrets required in GitHub repository settings

Tools