How to release versions on GitHub through the command line?

Question

GitHub has a feature on their website that allows you to mark particular snapshots of your repository as release versions of software. Sample URL: https://github.com/github/orchestrator/releases

Is there a way I can do this from the command line, without having to log on and use the interface? I realize the feature is not a part of git, but I was hoping there is some kind of api or solution other people use to make the process automated.

Answer 1

There are many projects offering this — the order below is just for the sake indexing things —:

1. cheton's github-release-cli in Node (JS)
2. c4milo's github-release in Go (aims simplicity)
3. aktau's github-release in Go

And you can even do this directly with curl directly:

OWNER=
REPOSITORY=
ACCESS_TOKEN=
VERSION=
curl --data '{"tag_name": "v$VERSION",
                "target_commitish": "master",
                "name": "v$VERSION",
                "body": "Release of version $VERSION",
                "draft": false,
                "prerelease": false}' \
    https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPOSITORY/releases?access_token=$ACCESS_TOKEN

from Barry Kooij's Create Github releases via command line.

If you want a full featured answer on StackOverflow: Releasing a build artifact on Github.