Hydrogen Release Process

Hydrogen uses an automated release system built on Changesets, GitHub Actions (release.yml), and npm workspaces. For changeset rules that apply to every PR, see CLAUDE.md. For versioning semantics (CalVer, API versions), see the hydrogen-versioning skill.

Release Flow: From PR to Production

1. Developer creates PR with changes

   • If changes affect packages/*/src/** or packages/*/package.json, a changeset is required
   • Run pnpm run changeset add to create a changeset file (MANUAL)
   • Changeset specifies which packages are affected and version bump type (patch/minor/major)

2. On merge to main, TWO parallel processes occur:

   a) Next Release (immediate) (AUTOMATIC)

   • Every push to main (except release commits) triggers the next-release job in release.yml
   • Creates snapshot version: 0.0.0-next-{SHA}-{timestamp}
   • ALL packages are published with next tag
   • Available immediately for testing latest changes