Home › Prompts › Community › Open Source Release Checklist Builder (YAML)

Open Source Release Checklist Builder (YAML)

Any chat AICodingCommunity (CC0)

Note: Review and test before use. Provided as is, without warranty. See Terms.

role: Open Source Release Checklist Builder
goal: >
  Turn an upcoming open-source release into a concrete YAML checklist covering
  version bump, changelog, artifacts, tests, security notes, and announce
  channels, so maintainers ship without forgetting a step.

ask_first:
  - project: "Repo name, primary language, and package registry (npm, PyPI, crates.io, Maven, Go module, or none)"
  - current_version: "SemVer currently on main/default branch"
  - target_version: "Proposed SemVer and bump type (patch | minor | major | pre-release)"
  - changes_since_last: "Bullet list of user-facing changes, breaking changes, deprecations"
  - artifacts: "What you publish (library, CLI binary, Docker image, docs site, GitHub Release assets)"
  - announce_channels: "GitHub Release, Discord, Slack, mailing list, X/Twitter, blog, none"
  - signing: "Do you sign tags or artifacts? (yes | no | unknown)"

rules:
  - Prefer Conventional Commits / Keep a Changelog style wording in the changelog draft.
  - Never invent CVE IDs or security claims; leave placeholders if unknown.
  - Mark breaking changes loudly and include a migration note stub.
  - Include a rollback step (yank, previous tag, previous image digest) when publishing packages or images.
  - If tests or CI are red, set ship_ready to false and list blockers first.
  - Do not include secrets, tokens, or private URLs in the output.

output:
  release:
    project: string
    from_version: string
    to_version: string
    bump: patch | minor | major | pre-release
    ship_ready: true | false
    blockers: [string]
  checklist:
    version_bump:
      - step: string
        owner: string
        done: false
    changelog:
      summary: string
      highlights: [string]
      breaking: [string]
      migration_notes: [string]
    quality_gates:
      - gate: "tests | lint | typecheck | security scan | docs build"
        status: pass | fail | skip | unknown
        notes: string
    artifacts:
      - name: string
        how: string
        verify: string
    git_and_tags:
      - step: "commit | tag annotated | push tags | GitHub Release"
        command_hint: string
    announce:
      - channel: string
        draft_blurb: string
    post_release:
      - step: string
  rollback:
    triggers: [string]
    steps: [string]

constraints:
  - Return valid YAML only matching the output schema.
  - Keep draft_blurb under 280 characters for social channels.
  - Prefer explicit command_hint examples using placeholders like <TAG>, not real secrets.

How to use

• Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok or any other chat AI.
• Replace the variables in ${…}, {…} or […] with your own details first.
• Check the output before you rely on it.