name	create-release
description	Cut a new Impala desktop release (patch/minor/major). Use when the user asks to "create a release", "cut a release", "ship a release", "new patch/minor release", or bump the desktop version. Drives scripts/create-release.sh — never hand-edit versions.

Create an Impala desktop release

A release is a version-bump commit plus a desktop-v*.*.* tag. Pushing that tag fires the release-desktop.yml workflow (on: push: tags: "desktop-v*.*.*"), which builds and publishes immediately — the final step is gh release create … --latest with no --draft. Treat this as an outward-facing, hard-to-reverse action.

Always use scripts/create-release.sh. Never hand-edit version numbers — the script keeps four (or five) config files in sync and handles the daemon-version subtlety below.

Steps

Find the current version. A quick local check:
```
git tag --list 'desktop-v*' --sort=-v:refname | head
```
(The script itself derives the current version from gh release list, falling back to tauri.conf.json — these can differ from local tags if a release was deleted or failed, so prefer gh release list if in doubt.) The bump is relative to that: patch = 0.18.4 → 0.18.5, minor = → 0.19.0, major = → 1.0.0.
Preflight. The script aborts on a dirty tree, so verify clean and in sync first:
```
git fetch origin --quiet && git status -sb
```
Be on main and level with origin/main. The script is not main-enforced — it commits the version bump to your current branch and runs git push origin <current-branch> <tag>. The tag (not the branch) triggers the build, but you want the bump commit to land on main, so check the branch yourself. Also needs gh authenticated and jq installed (the script checks both).
Run with an explicit version to skip the interactive bump menu:
```
./scripts/create-release.sh 0.18.5
```
With no version argument it prompts interactively (patch/minor/major/custom) — pass the version so it runs unattended. (The script also parses --publish and --merge, but both are currently dead flags — set and never read — so they have no effect.)
Run it in the background. The script ends with gh run watch, and the build runs ~10–15 min (recent successful runs: 9–12 min) — longer than a foreground Bash timeout. Launch with run_in_background: true, then read the output file to confirm the early steps (commit release: desktop vX.Y.Z, tag desktop-vX.Y.Z, push) before letting it watch the build. You're notified when it finishes; success means the release is live.

What the script does for you

Bumps the version in backend/tauri/tauri.conf.json, backend/tauri/Cargo.toml, backend/mcp/Cargo.toml, apps/desktop/package.json.
Daemon version is conditional. backend/tauri/daemon/Cargo.toml is bumped only if backend/tauri/daemon or backend/tauri/shared changed since the last tag (git diff --quiet "$LATEST_TAG" -- backend/tauri/daemon backend/tauri/shared). Why: backend/tauri/build.rs bakes daemon/Cargo.toml's version into the BUNDLED_DAEMON_VERSION env at compile time; at startup the host (backend/tauri/src/daemon_client.rs) compares the running daemon's reported version against BUNDLED_DAEMON_VERSION and, if they differ, shuts the old daemon down and respawns the bundled one — killing any in-flight PTY sessions (the daemon otherwise survives GUI quit via setsid). Bumping the daemon version when nothing in it changed would force that needless respawn. Don't defeat this by bumping the daemon manually.
Commits as release: desktop vX.Y.Z, tags desktop-vX.Y.Z, pushes the current branch + tag, then watches the workflow and prints the release URL.

If the tag already exists

The script offers to delete and recreate the local tag (and the GitHub release) — only do this if the prior attempt failed before publishing.

Create an Impala desktop release

Always use scripts/create-release.sh. Never hand-edit version numbers — the script keeps four (or five) config files in sync and handles the daemon-version subtlety below.

Steps

Find the current version. A quick local check:

git tag --list 'desktop-v*' --sort=-v:refname | head

(The script itself derives the current version from gh release list, falling back to tauri.conf.json — these can differ from local tags if a release was deleted or failed, so prefer gh release list if in doubt.) The bump is relative to that: patch = 0.18.4 → 0.18.5, minor = → 0.19.0, major = → 1.0.0.

Preflight. The script aborts on a dirty tree, so verify clean and in sync first:

git fetch origin --quiet && git status -sb

Be on main and level with origin/main. The script is not main-enforced — it commits the version bump to your current branch and runs git push origin <current-branch> <tag>. The tag (not the branch) triggers the build, but you want the bump commit to land on main, so check the branch yourself. Also needs gh authenticated and jq installed (the script checks both).

Run with an explicit version to skip the interactive bump menu:

./scripts/create-release.sh 0.18.5

With no version argument it prompts interactively (patch/minor/major/custom) — pass the version so it runs unattended. (The script also parses --publish and --merge, but both are currently dead flags — set and never read — so they have no effect.)

Run it in the background. The script ends with gh run watch, and the build runs ~10–15 min (recent successful runs: 9–12 min) — longer than a foreground Bash timeout. Launch with run_in_background: true, then read the output file to confirm the early steps (commit release: desktop vX.Y.Z, tag desktop-vX.Y.Z, push) before letting it watch the build. You're notified when it finishes; success means the release is live.

What the script does for you

Bumps the version in backend/tauri/tauri.conf.json, backend/tauri/Cargo.toml, backend/mcp/Cargo.toml, apps/desktop/package.json.

Daemon version is conditional. backend/tauri/daemon/Cargo.toml is bumped only if backend/tauri/daemon or backend/tauri/shared changed since the last tag (git diff --quiet "$LATEST_TAG" -- backend/tauri/daemon backend/tauri/shared). Why: backend/tauri/build.rs bakes daemon/Cargo.toml's version into the BUNDLED_DAEMON_VERSION env at compile time; at startup the host (backend/tauri/src/daemon_client.rs) compares the running daemon's reported version against BUNDLED_DAEMON_VERSION and, if they differ, shuts the old daemon down and respawns the bundled one — killing any in-flight PTY sessions (the daemon otherwise survives GUI quit via setsid). Bumping the daemon version when nothing in it changed would force that needless respawn. Don't defeat this by bumping the daemon manually.

Commits as release: desktop vX.Y.Z, tags desktop-vX.Y.Z, pushes the current branch + tag, then watches the workflow and prints the release URL.

If the tag already exists

The script offers to delete and recreate the local tag (and the GitHub release) — only do this if the prior attempt failed before publishing.