Release tools for bash workflows

This toolkit represents a collection of bash scripts for various purposes.

Any and all contributions are welcome; just open a PR.

Quickstart

1. Install the tools

# curl
bash <(curl -sSL "https://github.com/releasetools/cli/releases/latest/download/install.sh")

# or wget
bash <(wget -q -O- "https://github.com/releasetools/cli/releases/latest/download/install.sh")

These URLs always resolve to the most recent release. To install a specific version, replace latest/download with download/vX.Y.Z.

Or alternatively, with brew:

brew tap releasetools/tap
brew install releasetools-cli

The tools will by default be installed to ~/.local/share/releasetools/cli/VERSION/ and a binary will be symlinked at ~/.local/bin/releasetools.

2. Utilize the releasetools library

# With ~/.local/bin in your PATH:
export PATH=~/.local/bin:"$PATH"

# You can run commands, e.g.:
releasetools version
# vX.Y.Z

# Optionally, check that all dependencies for all modules are correctly installed
releasetools base::check_deps
# Ok.

# You can also check the install location
releasetools base::install_location
# /Users/user/.local/share/releasetools/cli/vX.Y.Z/releasetools.bash

Customizations

Several customizations can be applied prior to installation:

1. The location where the tools will be installed:

export RELEASETOOLS_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/.local/share"
# proceed with the installation steps outlined above

2. The path where the binary is symlinked:

export RELEASETOOLS_BINARY_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin"
# proceed with the installation steps outlined above

GitHub Action

The releasetools/cli library can be installed via a GitHub workflow:

steps:
  ...
  - uses: releasetools/cli@v0
  ...

A few customizations are available, if needed:

steps:
  # Install releasetools
  - uses: releasetools/cli@v0

  # Customizations
  # with:
  #   # Pin a specific version (defaults to the version this action was released with)
  #   version: "vX.Y.Z"
  # env:
  #   # Configure the installation directory
  #   RELEASETOOLS_INSTALL_DIR: /home/runner/.local/share
  #   # Configure where binaries are linked (e.g. a directory that is already in PATH)
  #   RELEASETOOLS_BINARY_DIR: /home/runner/.local/bin

  # Check that `releasetools` was installed correctly
  - run: releasetools base::check_deps

NOTE: there is nothing to install alongside it. Every module is bash over git, gh and coreutils, so the action is a single download-and-link step.

Developers

You can find the code and development guidelines in the src/ directory.

Once you have completed and tested the code, see the release instructions.

License

Copyright © 2025 Mihai Bojin

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.