Release Automation#

Bamboo uses release-please to fully automate versioning, changelog generation, and Hex package publishing. The pipeline has two stages: a release PR stage and a publish stage.

How It Works#

Push to main
    │
    ▼
release.yaml — runs release-please-action
    │
    ▼
Release Please opens/updates a release PR
    │ (bumps mix.exs, manifest, CHANGELOG.md, README.md)
    ▼
PR is merged
    │
    ▼
GitHub Release is created
    │
    ▼
production.yaml — publishes to Hex.pm

Stage 1 — Release PR (.github/workflows/release.yaml)
Triggered on every push to main. Runs googleapis/release-please-action@v5 and either opens a new release PR or updates the existing one. It reads configuration from two files:

• .github/release-please-config.json — defines release-type: elixir, changelog sections (Features, Bug Fixes, Miscellaneous), a sentence-case plugin, and—critically—lists README.md as an extra-files entry so the installation snippet is updated alongside mix.exs.
• .github/release-please-manifest.json — tracks the current released version (e.g., "." : "2.5.0"). This is the source of truth release-please uses to determine what the next version should be.

Stage 2 — Hex Publish (.github/workflows/production.yaml)
Triggered on GitHub release events (released or prereleased). Compiles with docs and runs mix hex.publish --yes using the HEX_API_KEY secret.

What Gets Updated in a Release PR#

When release-please generates a release PR (e.g., PR #767 "chore(main): release 2.5.1"), it automatically updates:

The version bump type (patch / minor / major) is determined by Conventional Commits in the merge history: fix: → patch, feat: → minor, feat!: or BREAKING CHANGE → major.

Configuration Ownership#

Both .github/release-please-config.json and all workflow files 12 carry the comment:

"This file is synced with beam-community/common-config. Any changes will be overwritten."

This means the release automation config is centrally managed in the beam-community/common-config repository. Do not edit these files locally — submit changes upstream to common-config instead.

Key Files at a Glance#