What exactly is a Release in GitHub?

git github release github-api
Ernst Ernst picture Ernst Ernst · Nov 5, 2015 · Viewed 22.1k times · Source
  • What is it exactly?
  • For what is it used?
  • How widespread is the usage?
  • How is it usually used?

Answer

Ernst Ernst picture Ernst Ernst · Nov 5, 2015

From Official GitHub:

Releases are GitHub's way of packaging and providing software to your users. You can think of it as a replacement to using downloads to provide software.

With Releases, you can provide links to binary files, as well as release notes describing your changes.

At their core, Releases are based on Git tags. Tags mark a specific point in the history of your project, so they're a great way to indicate a Release. Releases are ordered by a tag's date in the following way:

For more information about viewing your existing tags, see Working With Tags.

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