Maintainer notes

Notes for Docsy maintainers

For our main contributing page covering license agreements, code of conduct and more, see Contributing. This page is for maintainers only.

PR descriptions

Generally speaking, a PR opening comment should be a Markdown list that explains the “why” behind the changes, and at a very high level what was changed. Start each item with a verb in the present tense, 3rd person singular.

PR authors are encouraged to flag the scope of changes when a PR touches Docsy’s public customization surface – especially for breaking changes – to help reviewers and release-time audits. For example:

- Scope: breaking (removal), user-facing (new)

Suggested scope labels (use one or more):

breaking, user-facing, internal-only, docs-only.

Optionally qualify with kinds in parentheses, mapping to release-blog and changelog sections: new, change, fix, removal, deprecation.

The release-time audit (see Release-prep audit) is the source of truth for what gets documented; PR-level scope labels are a hint, not a substitute.

Hugo version pins

From the repo root:

npm run set:hugo:version -- X.Y.Z
npm install  # optional, if hugo is already installed

This updates:

package.json: config.hugo_version, used by install-hugo.sh, which installs hugo-extended into docsy.dev if it is not already present.
docsy.dev/config/_default/hugo.yaml:
- params.hugoMinVersion / &hugoMinVersion
- Note: module.hugoVersion.min stays as *hugoMinVersion
docsy.dev/package.json: hugo-extended

Release-prep audit

Before drafting the changelog entry and release blog post, run a careful audit of every PR and raw commit in the release range so nothing user-visible slips through (motivated by the version-menu near-miss during 0.15.0 prep).

For each PR/commit in git log v<prev>..main:

Inspect the actual diff (not just the title or PR description). Use gh pr view <num> and git show <sha> as needed.
Classify the change: breaking, user-facing, internal-only, or docs-only (see definitions in Public customization surface and Breaking change).
For every breaking or user-facing item, verify it appears in both the changelog and the release blog post — with cross-links to the relevant user-guide sections where applicable.
Be especially alert to: new/renamed params, partials, shortcodes, layouts, CSS classes, i18n keys, default-behavior shifts, and changes to the version menu, navigation, or other rendered output.

Capture the audit as a working document under tasks/<release>/release-prep/ (see prior releases for examples) so reviewers can sanity-check the classifications. Treat the audit — not PR-level scope hints — as the source of truth for what the changelog and release blog must cover.

Publishing a release

These notes are WIP for creating a release from a local copy of the repo. These instructions assume the release is:

v0.15.1

If not adjust accordingly.

Important

Before creating a release, do a release-prep audit and use it to drive the changelog and release-blog updates in the next two steps.

Change directory to your local Docsy repo.
- Expecting final adjustments as you prepare for the release? Create a branch to work from. For example:
```
git checkout -b release-v0.15.1-prep
# Or you have a local create-branch alias:
gcb release-v0.15.1-prep
```
- Serve the site and continue working through these steps from the served version of these notes.
Create or update a changelog entry for v0.15.1.
- This step is driven by the release-prep audit.
- The section should provide a brief summary of breaking changes using the section template at the end of the file.
- Ensure to remove the UNRELEASED note, if still present.
- You’ll create a new section for the next release in a later step.
Update the release report blog post for v0.15.1, if any.
- Remove draft status.
- Set date (or lastmod if already published) to today’s date.
Run npm run fix.
Update Docsy version to v0.15.1 using the following from a (bash or zsh) terminal.
- First set the VERSION variable; we use it throughout the steps below.
```
VERSION=v0.15.1
```
- Then run the set:version script.
  Docsy is probably already at v0.15.1-dev, so you can run:
```
npm run set:version
```
  Otherwise, set the version explicitly:
```
npm run set:version -- --version $VERSION
```
  Both forms update the version related fields in package.json and docsy.dev/config files.
Run npm run ci:test, which runs ci:prepare and more to ensure that, e.g., vendor assets and go.mod dependencies are up-to-date, etc.
Submit a PR with your changes.
- Set the BASE variable to the target branch: main if this is a stable release, and release for patch releases.
```
BASE=main
```
- Commit any changes accumulated from the previous steps using this title:
```
Release v0.15.0 preparation
```
- Create a PR (with version-checks disabled) using the following command that will open a PR-creation page in your browser:
```
export SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1
gh pr create --web --title "Release $VERSION preparation" \
  --base $BASE \
  --body "- Contributes to #<ADD-RELEASE-PREP-ISSUE-HERE>"
```
- Use the web interface to fill in the PR details.
- Submit the PR.
Test the PR branch from selected sites, and push any required adjustments.
- If the test site uses Docsy as a Git submodule:
```
cd themes/docs
git fetch
git switch -t REPO/BRANCH-NAME # e.g. chalin/chalin-m24-0.14.0-pre-release
```
Get PR approved and merged.
Pull the PR to get the last changes.
Test Docsy from docsy-example and the docsy-starter. (Consider updating the Docsy version for these examples in the examples page.)
Ensure that you’re:
- On the target $BASE branch
- At the commit that you want to tag as v0.15.0
Create the new tag for v0.15.0.
- Set the REL variable to the release version or use the VERSION variable if you set it in the previous step.
```
REL=${VERSION:-v0.15.0}
echo "REL=$REL"
```
- Create the new tag.
```
git tag $REL
```
- Double check:
```
git tag --sort=-creatordate | head -3
```
Push the new tag: either to all remotes at once, or one at a time.
Push to all remotes
- List the remotes so you know what you’ll be pushing to:
```
git remote
```
- Check that the push-all-remotes alias is defined, and if not, define it:
```
git config --global --list | grep alias.push-all-remotes
```
  Define a `push-all-remotes` alias
  First check if the push-all-remotes alias is already defined:
  git config --global --list | grep alias.push-all-remotes
  If not, define the alias:
  git config --global alias.push-all-remotes \ '!f() { for r in $(git remote); do (set -x; git push "$r" "$1"); done; }; f'
  Note
  You only need to define the alias once. Omit --global from the command above to make the alias available only in the current repository rather than all repositories.
- If you have git hooks enabled that auto-update the Docsy package version, disable the hook check for now:
```
export SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1
```
- Push the tag to the remotes:
```
$ git push-all-remotes $REL
+ git push origin v0.15.0
* [new tag]         v0.15.0 -> v0.15.0
+ git push upstream v0.15.0
* [new tag]         v0.15.0 -> v0.15.0
...
```
- Sanity check over upstream for example:
```
git ls-remote --tags upstream | grep $REL
```
- Unset the SKIP_VERSION_CHECK variable when you’re done:
```
unset SKIP_VERSION_CHECK
```
Push to a single remote
- Push to a single remote at a time, such as upstream:
```
git push upstream $REL
```
- Sanity check over upstream for example:
```
git ls-remote --tags upstream | grep $REL
```
Update the deploy/prod branch from $BASE.
For stable releases from main, use:
```
git checkout deploy/prod
git merge --ff-only main
git push-all-remotes deploy/prod
```
For patch releases from release, selectively merge from $BASE.
The branch update will trigger a production deploy of the website.
Wait for the production deploy to complete and check that docsy.dev has been updated to the new release.
Draft a new release using GitHub web; fill in the fields as follows:
- Visit tags to find the new release tag v0.15.0.
- Select Create a new release from the v0.15.0 tag dropdown menu
- Release title: use the release version.
```
v0.15.0
```
- Click Generate release notes to get the release details inserted into the release notes text area.
- Add the following text atop the generated release notes:
```
## Release summary

- [Release 0.15.0 report and upgrade guide][blog]
- [Changelog v0.15.0][changelog] entry


[blog]: <https://www.docsy.dev/blog/2026/0.15.0/>
[changelog]: <https://www.docsy.dev/project/about/changelog/#v0.15.0>
```
- Select Create a discussion for this release.
Publish the release: click Publish release.
Test the release with a downstream project and/or the docsy-example site.
If you find issues, determine whether they need to be fixed immediately. If so, get fixes submitted, reviewed and approved. Go back to step 1 to publish a dot release.

If all is well, release the Docsy example as detailed next.

Docsy example release

The steps you follow are similar to the ones above for the Docsy release, but with the following modifications:

Update the version of the example to v0.15.1-dev:

VERSION=v0.15.1-dev
npm run set:version:example -- --version $VERSION

Perform step 6 onwards as above to test, create a PR, create a release and publish it with one difference:
- Once the deploy/prod branch has been updated, wait for the production deploy to complete and check that example.docsy.dev has been updated to the new release.
- To create a new release draft, visit Docsy-example release draft.
Update the Examples page Docsy version in the Starter templates table to v0.15.1.

Doc-rooted release

Update the doc-rooted branch from deploy/prod:

git checkout doc-rooted
git merge --ff-only deploy/prod
npm run doc-rooted -- build
# Optionally take a look at the preview
npm run doc-rooted -- serve
curl http://localhost:1313/index.md
# Push the changes
git push-all-remotes doc-rooted

If the fast-forward merge fails, stop and reconcile the branch history. Once pushed, wait for the Netlify deploy and check the doc-rooted preview.

Post Docsy-release followup

Assuming that both the Docsy and Docsy-example releases v0.15.1-dev have been successfully deployed, and that at least one other project has been successfully tested with the new release, then perform the following actions before any further changes are merged into the main branch:

Update the package version to a dev ID for Docsy and Docsy-example:

$ npm run -s set:version:git-info
✓ Updated package.json version: 0.14.3 → 0.14.3-dev+003-over-main-cf4f514b
✓ Updated docsy.dev/config/_default/params.yaml version: 0.14.3 → 0.14.3-dev
✓ Updated docsy.dev/config/_default/params.yaml tdBuildId: (none) → 003-over-main-cf4f514b
...
$ npm run -s set:version:example:git-info
...

In the Changelog:
- Create a new entry for the next release by copying the ENTRY TEMPLATE at the end of the file.
- Fix the new release URL, which ends with latest?FIXME=..., so that it refers to the actual release, now that it exists.
Submit a PR with your changes, using a title like:
```
Set version to v0.15.1-dev
```
Get PR approved and merged.

Release helper scripts

NPM scripts: set:version and set:version:*; set:hugo:version (see Hugo version pins)
scripts/get-build-id.sh: Builds X.Y.Z-dev+…-over-main-… from the latest semver tag on main, commit offset, and tip SHA; if package.json’s X.Y.Z core is already greater than that git-derived core, keeps the higher core (release prep ahead of tagging).
scripts/set-package-version/index.mjs: Low-level version manager. See script help for usage.

Last modified May 3, 2026: Update examples page to 0.15.0, adjust maintainer notes (#2632) (de60b6d)