Release Checklist Automation

How It Works

Many projects accumulate "release rituals" that require dozens of manual steps. This recipe

captures the steps, verifies them, and automates them safely.

Triggers

• Release process is "really manual" and easy to mess up
• People forget version bumps or changelog updates
• Releases happen from the wrong branch or with inconsistent tagging

Steps

1. Document the current release steps as a checklist (single source of truth).
2. Convert to automation:

• derive version,
• generate changelog,
• tag,
• build artifacts,
• publish.

1. Add an approval gate for publishing to production registries/stores.
2. Add dry-run mode that validates release readiness without publishing.
3. Store release artifacts and logs for auditability.

Expected Outcome

• Releases become boring and repeatable.
• Less human error and faster release cadence.

Example Inputs

• "Our release process has 20 manual steps."
• "We need consistent versioning and changelog generation."
• "Automate GitHub releases and artifact publishing."

Tips

• Automate the boring parts, keep a human gate for the irreversible parts.