A full version history of the semantic-release package with size, number of distributed files and dependency evolution.
Semantic Release is a popular npm package designed to automate the release workflow for software projects, ensuring consistent versioning and publishing. Initially created by Stephan Bönnemann, it has undergone significant evolution and numerous contributions. The early versions, from 1.0.0 to 3.4.1 in 2015, focused on basic semantic versioning and integrations with GitHub and Travis CI, with frequent patch and minor releases improving functionality and dependencies.
Version 4.0.0 marked a shift towards a more modular architecture, introducing dedicated plugins and components. The 6.x series improved condition Travis support and dependency updates. The transition to 7.0.0 introduced enhanced release note generation and refined core functionalities, and this trend continued through the 8.x and 9.x. The release of Semantic Release 10 introduced plugin support. Next Semantic Release 11 the project embraced configuration files, allowing users to tailor its behavior extensively. Semantic Release 12 was mostly about minor improvements and fixing of bugs. It was upgraded with a CLI in Semantic Release 13. The Semantic Release Team started working on error messages system. Version 15 added signale to have better logs overall. Finally semantic release 16 focused on adding the right major versions to all dependencies, updating some peer dependencies.
Subsequently, versions 17 through 24 delivered numerous enhancements including marked and lodash upgrades and fixes for major vulnerabilities. A new testing tool was added to ensure that everything was running accurately as well.