There is no manual release ritual. Merging into master triggers the deploy workflow, which builds, tests, versions, tags and publishes. Your commit messages are the input to that machine.
The Pipeline
Six stages, defined in .github/workflows/release.yml .
The deploy workflow triggers on every push to master, unless the commit message contains [skip ci] — which is how release commits avoid looping.
The workflow reinstalls dependencies from the lockfile, runs npm run build, then npm test.
npm run build:registry regenerates apps/web/public/r, and any change is committed as a [skip ci] chore.
nx release version computes the bump from the commit types, then nx release changelog updates CHANGELOG.md. The conventional-commit mapping lives in nx.json.
The workflow commits 🔖 chore(release): publish v<version> [skip ci], tags it v<version>, and publishes the CLI to npm with provenance under the latest or beta tag.
A GitHub release is created with generated notes, and a Discord webhook announces it.
What the release job runs 
npm ci
npm run build
npm test
npm run build:registry
npx nx run zard:build
npx nx run cli:build
npx nx run mcp:build
npx nx release version <bump> --preid=beta --git-commit=false --git-tag=false
npx nx release changelog <version> --git-commit=false --git-tag=false
git tag -a "v<version>" -m "v<version>"
npm publish --provenance --access public --tag <latest|beta>Version Bump
The mapping from commit type to semver bump is configured under release.conventionalCommits in nx.json . Before versioning, the workflow runs scripts/normalize-commits.cts so the emoji prefix does not confuse the conventional-commit parser.
| Commits since the last release | Bump |
|---|---|
| Any commit marked with ! | major |
| At least one feat | minor |
| fix, perf or revert only | patch |
| docs, refactor, test, build, ci, style or chore only | none |
Beta by default
The workflow defaults to a prerelease bump with the beta preid, so day-to-day merges publish under the beta npm tag. A stable latest release is triggered manually by a maintainer choosing patch, minor or major.
Published Packages
Three artifacts leave this repository, on two different schedules.
| Package | Workflow | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| zard-cli | .github/workflows/release.yml | Automatic, on every push to master. |
| zard (library) | .github/workflows/release.yml | Versioned together with the CLI — nx.json releases both as a fixed group. |
| zard-mcp | .github/workflows/release-mcp.yml | Manual, through workflow_dispatch. Tagged mcp-v<version>. |
Your Part
Write correct commit messages. That is the whole contract. Do not bump versions, do not edit CHANGELOG.md , do not create tags — the automation owns all three, and a manual edit only creates a conflict.
If you are curious about what your change would release, preview it locally without touching anything.
Preview a release locally npm run release:dry-run