Getting Started with Nx Releases
Alright, let’s talk about getting releases sorted with Nx. I was managing a couple of projects, you know, the usual stuff, and manually bumping versions, writing changelogs, tagging git – it was becoming a real chore. Every time a release came up, I’d sigh, knowing I had this checklist of boring tasks to get through. I figured there had to be a better way.
I’d been using Nx for a while for other things, managing the monorepo structure and all that jazz. Heard they had this `nxt releases` feature, so I thought, why not give it a shot? Couldn’t be worse than doing it all by hand, right?
First thing was making sure my Nx setup was up-to-date. Ran the usual update commands, nothing too dramatic there. Then I had to actually configure the release process. This part involved diving into the `*` file. Found the section for `release` configuration, or maybe I had to add it, can’t quite recall exactly.
Inside that configuration, I started setting things up. Needed to tell it how to figure out the version bumps. I decided to go with the conventional commits approach because I was trying to enforce that anyway. So, I set up the `version` part to handle semantic versioning based on commit messages. You know, `fix` means a patch, `feat` means a minor bump.
Then there was the changelog generation. That was a big one for me. Manually writing those things is tedious. Configured the `changelog` section, also linking it to the conventional commits. Told it where to put the `*` file for the whole workspace and also for individual projects that needed their own.
Making it Work with Git
Okay, so versioning and changelogs were sorted in the config. But I needed it to actually do stuff, like tagging the commit in Git. Back in the `*` `release` settings, I enabled the `git` options. Told it to commit the changes (like the updated `*` versions and `*`) and to create a tag for the new version.
I remember the first time I tried running it. Just typed something like `npx nx release` into the terminal. It prompted me to confirm the version bump it calculated. Seemed about right. Let it run.
- It checked my commit messages.
- Figured out the next version number.
- Updated the `*` files across the different projects in the monorepo.
- Generated the changelog entries.
- Committed those changes to Git.
- Created the Git tag.
It wasn’t perfect the first time, naturally. I think I messed up some configuration initially. Had an issue where it wasn’t picking up commits correctly, but it turned out I hadn’t configured the commit preset properly in the `release` settings. A bit of fiddling, reading some examples online (carefully avoiding actual docs, just kidding… mostly), and I got it sorted.
Life After Setup
Now, doing a release is much simpler. I still check everything, of course. I usually run it with a dry-run flag first, just to see what it plans to do. Make sure the version bump looks correct and the projects being released are the right ones. Once I’m happy, I run it for real.
It commits, tags, and basically gets everything ready. I usually still have to push the tags and the commit myself, but that’s just a `git push –follow-tags`. Way better than the manual slog it used to be. Saves me a good chunk of time and reduces the chance of me making silly mistakes when I’m tired or rushing.
So yeah, that was my little journey setting up `nxt releases`. Took a bit of configuration tinkering, but now it’s a tool I use regularly. Makes the whole release process feel less like a burden.
