Releases

The release object has two actions. git elegant release new cuts a release from the default development branch, and git elegant release notes prints the log between two refs so you can paste it wherever your release lives.

Cutting a release

git elegant release new v2026.8.29

The name is the only argument, and it becomes the tag. In interactive mode you are asked for it when you leave it out; in non-interactive mode a missing name fails the command. From there Elegant Git

checks out the default development branch and runs git pull --tags
drafts an annotated tag message — a Release <name> heading followed by one - <subject> line per commit since the last tag — and opens it in your editor so you can edit it before it is recorded
pushes the tags
produces the release notes in the smart layout and puts them on your clipboard when pbcopy or xclip is available, printing them otherwise

The command runs inside both the stash pipe and the branch pipe, so uncommitted changes and the branch you were on are preserved and restored — you end up back where you started. “The last tag” means the highest tag by version order, not the most recently created one.

Shaping the notes

git elegant release notes [<layout>] [<from-ref>] [<to-ref>]

Every argument is optional. The layout defaults to simple, <from-ref> defaults to the last tag, and <to-ref> defaults to HEAD. Pass all-commits as <from-ref> when you want the whole history up to <to-ref> instead of a range.

There are two layouts:

simple prints a Release notes heading and one - <subject> bullet per commit, which is what you want for a changelog file or a plain-text announcement
smart prints an HTML list where every subject links to its commit on GitHub, and appends the issue references found in the commit body

smart needs a GitHub origin to build those links. When origin points somewhere else, the command quietly falls back to simple rather than emitting broken links. Any other layout name is an error.

git elegant release notes simple v2026.7.1 v2026.8.29