Defining Pre-Release Versions: Beta, Alpha, RC, and Version Bumping (--bump)

[bukowa]

Is there an existing issue or pull request for this?

• I have searched the existing issues and pull requests

Feature description

Releasing beta, RC (release candidate), or alpha versions is a common standard practice, especially when we want to test the entire build system. Sometimes these releases help ensure that the build scripts execute correctly and provide users with a preview version (e.g., a beta version), which is essentially complete but still in testing.

Sometimes, releasing a release candidate is necessary to verify the functionality of build scripts. It would be beneficial to standardize this process, allowing for the automatic generation of changelogs for these versions and their subsequent integration into the main release. Combining this with version bumping, while maintaining logical and configurable control, would be highly advantageous.

Desired solution

Simple idea for bumping:

git-cliff --bump-beta
git-cliff --bump-alpha
git-cliff --bump-rc

No simple idea for changelogs but see :

• CHANGELOG.md with pre-release versions #588

This doesn't seem so straightforward as everyone has their standards and this somehow should be customizable?

Alternatives considered

Manual bumping.

Additional context

Given the variety of standards used by different projects, it would be beneficial to provide customizable configuration keys for tags like rc, alpha, and beta. This would allow users to tailor the versioning system to their specific requirements.

• https://peps.python.org/pep-0440/

bump_beta = ...<format>
bump_alpha = ...<format>

OR

[rc]
header = "Release Candidate Changes"
label = "RC"
# Configuration for alpha versions
[alpha]
header = "Alpha Version Changes"
label = "Alpha"
# Configuration for beta versions
[beta]
header = "Beta Version Changes"
label = "Beta"

[bukowa]

It's not so easy for ex release-please from google issue regarding this: googleapis/release-please#2051

I just tried to release tauri app but automatic build fails because wix does not support anything other than numbers in version tauri-apps/tauri#5286 (comment)