Release Process

Purpose

How Excavate releases are created and published.

Prerequisites

  • Commit access to the repository

  • RubyGems.org account with push permissions

  • familiarity with gem-release gem

Release Checklist

1. Prepare Release 

# Ensure clean working directory
git status

# Pull latest changes
git pull origin main

# Run tests
bundle exec rspec

# Run linter
bundle exec rubocop

2. Update Version

Edit lib/excavate/version.rb:

module Excavate
  VERSION = "1.1.0"  # Update version
end

3. Update Changelog

Update CHANGELOG.md:

## 1.1.0 (2025-02-25)

### Added
- Support for RAR format
- New filter pattern syntax

### Fixed
- Error handling for corrupted archives

### Changed
- Improved extraction performance

4. Commit Version Bump 

git add lib/excavate/version.rb CHANGELOG.md
git commit -m "chore: bump version to 1.1.0"

5. Create Tag 

git tag v1.1.0
git push origin main --tags

6. Build Gem 

gem build excavate.gemspec

7. Push to RubyGems 

gem push excavate-1.1.0.gem

Using gem-release

The gem-release gem simplifies the process:

# Install gem-release
gem install gem-release

# Bump version and create tag
gem bump --version minor  # or major, patch

# Push to RubyGems
gem release

Version Numbering

Excavate follows Semantic Versioning:

  • MAJOR: Breaking changes

  • MINOR: New features, backward compatible

  • PATCH: Bug fixes, backward compatible

Examples:

  • 1.0.0 → 1.0.1: Bug fix

  • 1.0.1 → 1.1.0: New feature

  • 1.1.0 → 2.0.0: Breaking change

Pre-Release Versions

For testing before official release:

# Create pre-release version
# In version.rb: VERSION = "1.1.0.pre.1"

gem build excavate.gemspec
gem push excavate-1.1.0.pre.1.gem

Users can install pre-release with:

gem install excavate --pre

GitHub Release

After pushing to RubyGems:

  1. Go to https://github.com/omnizip/excavate/releases

  2. Click "Draft a new release"

  3. Select the tag

  4. Add release notes from CHANGELOG

  5. Publish release

Documentation Updates

After release:

  1. Update documentation site (if needed)

  2. Verify RubyGems page shows new version

  3. Update README badges if needed

Rollback

If issues are found after release:

# Yank the gem (use carefully)
gem yank excavate -v 1.1.0

# Fix the issue
# ... make changes ...

# Release fixed version
gem bump --version patch
gem release

See Also