Semantic Versioning

Semantic Versioning

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Establish semantic versioning practices to maintain consistent version numbering aligned with release significance, enabling automated version management and release notes generation.

When to Use

• Package and library releases
• API versioning
• Version bumping automation
• Release note generation
• Breaking change tracking
• Dependency management
• Changelog management

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

# package.json
{
  "name": "my-awesome-package",
  "version": "1.2.3",
  "description": "An awesome package",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "repository": { "type": "git", "url": "https://github.com/org/repo.git" },
  "scripts": { "release": "semantic-release" },
  "devDependencies":
    {
      "semantic-release": "^21.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/changelog": "^6.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/git": "^10.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/github": "^9.0.0",
      "conventional-changelog-cli": "^3.0.0",
    },
}

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Follow strict MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format
• Use conventional commits
• Automate version bumping
• Generate changelogs automatically
• Tag releases in git
• Document breaking changes
• Use prerelease versions for testing

❌ DON'T

• Manually bump versions inconsistently
• Skip breaking change documentation
• Use arbitrary version numbering
• Mix features in patch releases

Changelog Generation

Changelog Generation

#!/bin/bash
# generate-changelog.sh

# Using conventional-changelog CLI
conventional-changelog -p angular -i CHANGELOG.md -s

# Or manually format changelog
CHANGELOG="# Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).

Conventional Commits Format

Conventional Commits Format

# Feature commit (MINOR bump)
git commit -m "feat: add new search feature"
git commit -m "feat(api): add pagination support"

# Bug fix commit (PATCH bump)
git commit -m "fix: resolve null pointer exception"
git commit -m "fix(auth): fix login timeout issue"

# Breaking change (MAJOR bump)
git commit -m "feat!: redesign API endpoints"
git commit -m "feat(api)!: remove deprecated methods"

# Documentation
git commit -m "docs: update README"

# Performance improvement
git commit -m "perf: optimize database queries"

# Refactoring
git commit -m "refactor: simplify authentication logic"

# Tests
git commit -m "test: add integration tests"

# Chore
git commit -m "chore: update dependencies"

# Complete example with body and footer
git commit -m "feat(payment): add Stripe integration

Add support for processing credit card payments via Stripe.
Includes webhook handling for payment confirmations.

BREAKING CHANGE: Payment API endpoint changed from /pay to /api/v2/payments
Closes #123"

Semantic Release Configuration

Semantic Release Configuration

// release.config.js
module.exports = {
  branches: ["main", { name: "develop", prerelease: "beta" }],
  plugins: [
    "@semantic-release/commit-analyzer",
    "@semantic-release/release-notes-generator",
    "@semantic-release/changelog",
    "@semantic-release/git",
    "@semantic-release/github",
    "@semantic-release/npm",
  ],
};

Semantic Versioning Configuration

Semantic Versioning Configuration

# package.json
{
  "name": "my-awesome-package",
  "version": "1.2.3",
  "description": "An awesome package",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "repository": { "type": "git", "url": "https://github.com/org/repo.git" },
  "scripts": { "release": "semantic-release" },
  "devDependencies":
    {
      "semantic-release": "^21.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/changelog": "^6.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/git": "^10.0.0",
      "@semantic-release/github": "^9.0.0",
      "conventional-changelog-cli": "^3.0.0",
    },
}

Version Bumping Script

Version Bumping Script

#!/bin/bash
# bump-version.sh

CURRENT_VERSION=$(grep '"version"' package.json | head -1 | sed 's/.*"version": "\([^"]*\)".*/\1/')
IFS='.' read -r MAJOR MINOR PATCH <<< "$CURRENT_VERSION"

case "${1:-patch}" in
  major)
    NEW_VERSION="$((MAJOR + 1)).0.0"
    ;;
  minor)
    NEW_VERSION="$MAJOR.$((MINOR + 1)).0"
    ;;
  patch)
    NEW_VERSION="$MAJOR.$MINOR.$((PATCH + 1))"
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 {major|minor|patch}"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

echo "Bumping version from $CURRENT_VERSION to $NEW_VERSION"

# Update package.json
npm version $NEW_VERSION --no-git-tag-v

# Update CHANGELOG
CHANGELOG_HEADER="## [$NEW_VERSION] - $(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
sed -i "1i\\$CHANGELOG_HEADER" CHANGELOG.md

# Commit and tag
git add package.json CHANGELOG.md package-lock.json
git commit -m "chore(release): version $NEW_VERSION"
git tag -a "v$NEW_VERSION" -m "Release $NEW_VERSION"

echo "✅ Version bumped to $NEW_VERSION"