How to handle release/prerelease with nx release ?

[ccreusat]

Current Behavior

I'm trying to manage a monorepo and release packages with nx release.
While it's working very well locally (on my machine), I can't easily manage the version/publish in CI/CD.

There is no documentation in the recipes (Recipes > nx release) and my attempts are not so great.

My current nx.json config for release is:

"release": {
    "projects": [
      "packages/*"
    ],
    "releaseTagPattern": "{version}",
    "git": {
      "commitMessage": "chore: version and publish v{version}",
      "commit": true,
      "tag": true,
      "push": true
    },
    "changelog": {
      "workspaceChangelog": {
        "createRelease": "github",
        "file": false
      }
    },
    "version": {
      "preVersionCommand": "pnpm dlx nx run-many -t build",
      "generatorOptions": {
        "packageRoot": "packages/{projectName}/dist",
        "currentVersionResolver": "git-tag",
        "skipLockFileUpdate": true,
        "specifierSource": "conventional-commits"
      }
    }
  },

and I have this github workflow to version and publish

if [ ${{ github.ref_name }} = "main" ]; then
          echo "This is the main branch."
          pnpm nx release --first-release --skip-publish
          pnpm nx release publish --output-style=stream
        else
          echo "This is not the main branch."
          pnpm nx release --skip-publish
          pnpm nx release publish --tag ${{ github.ref_name }} --output-style=stream

• If there is nothing to version, nx release publish will try to publish and I get an error -> seems right
• If there are changes, a new version is created and publishing is working correctly -> seems right too

But I have some issues so:

• How can I version in CI/CD following conventional commits and publish ONLY IF there is a change ?
• How release/prerelease should be done with nx release in CI/CD ?

For example:

• I need release on the main branch and prerelease on the develop branch
• If I merge develop into main, nx release doesn't detect changes

my-lib 🔍 Reading data for package "@ccreusat/my-lib" from packages/my-lib/dist/package.json
my-lib 📄 Using the current version 0.3.2-develop.6 already resolved from git tag "0.3.2-develop.6".
my-lib 🚫 Skipping versioning "@ccreusat/my-lib" as no changes were detected.

Expected Behavior

What I am expecting is:

• If there is nothing to version, nx release publish should not be triggered
  • I can version with nx release version --specifier prerelease but for some reason, git tags are not pushed to remote.
• If there are changes, a new version is created and publishing is working correctly
• If I'm doing a prerelease on the develop branch, when I'm merging into main, CI/CD should trigger a version and a publish with a stable/latest version

We should have something like semantic release to configure in nx.json (or maybe there is already a solution)

{
  branches: [
    { name: "main" },
    { name: "develop", prerelease: true }
  ];
}

GitHub Repo

https://github.com/ccreusat/ccreusat-package-based

Steps to Reproduce

1. Clone the repo
2. Use nx release --dry-run on the main branch
3. No changes are detected on the main branch, nx will find tag coming from develop

my-lib 🔍 Reading data for package "@ccreusat/my-lib" from packages/my-lib/dist/package.json
my-lib 📄 Using the current version 0.3.2-develop.6 already resolved from git tag "0.3.2-develop.6".
my-lib 🚫 Skipping versioning "@ccreusat/my-lib" as no changes were detected.

4. Add a new component in one of the react packages
5. Commit changes with fix | feat type
6. Use nx release --dry-run on the main branch
7. Detect changes with conventional commit but will tag 0.3.2-develop.7 instead of 0.3.2

Nx Report

 NX   Report complete - copy this into the issue template

Node           : 20.12.1
OS             : darwin-arm64
Native Target  : aarch64-macos
pnpm           : 9.4.0

nx (global)        : 19.8.0
nx                 : 19.8.4
@nx/js             : 19.8.4
@nx/eslint         : 19.8.4
@nx/eslint-plugin  : 19.8.4
@nx/react          : 19.8.4
@nrwl/tao          : 19.8.0
@nx/vite           : 19.8.4
@nx/web            : 19.8.4
typescript         : 5.5.4
---------------------------------------
Registered Plugins:
@nx/eslint/plugin
@nx/vite/plugin
---------------------------------------

Failure Logs

No response

Package Manager Version

[email protected]

Operating System

• macOS
• Linux
• Windows
• Other (Please specify)

Additional Information

No response

[yonitou]

Completely aligned with it. NX Release doesn't work if having for example a staging branch for prerelease and a production branch for release. No changes are detected when merging one into another and it's blocking us migrating from semantic-release
@jaysoo, do you think it will be possible to have it someday ?

[BrendanThysse]

Any feedback on this as I want to migrate to nx release from @jscutlery/semver:version but unfortunately need to prerelease per feature branch and production release for master/main branch

[sk-tjdownes]

Completely agree here. Versioning in nx and @jscutlery/semver both base versioning and releases from tags. Tags are not a dependable source of versioning, because they can change easily. It also makes a next/main versioning process impossible, and least in my understanding.

Taking a page from https://github.com/semantic-release
semantic-release, my firm belief is that versioning should be done by using git history, with conventional commits being the driver.

I'd like to understand why Nx doesn't use the git history.