Commits and releases

Conventional commits

Commit messages follow Conventional Commits, because they decide the next version:

Prefix Release

feat:

Minor (1.2.0 → 1.3.0)

fix:, perf:

Patch (1.2.0 → 1.2.1)

docs:, style:, refactor:, test:, build:, chore:, ci:

None

feat!:, or a BREAKING CHANGE: footer

Major

 
feat(backgrounds): add a local image provider

fix(launch): run entries on the host under Flatpak (fixes #12)

Closing keywords such as fixes #12 in a commit or pull request get a comment on that issue when the fix is released.

pre-commit

pre-commit checks commit messages, whitespace, YAML and JSON, and runs make lint and make test when Go code changes. Install its hooks once per clone:

pre-commit install --hook-type pre-commit --hook-type commit-msg

How a release happens

Every push to main runs .github/workflows/build.yml:

  1. build: make build, make lint and make test. Pull requests run this too.

  2. package: semantic-release reads the commits since the last tag (.releaserc.yaml). If any warrant a release, it tags the new version (1.2.3, no v), creates the GitHub release with notes, and comments on resolved issues and pull requests.

  3. semantic-release then runs goreleaser release (.goreleaser.yaml), which:

    1. builds the frontend,

    2. compiles BiscuitTin inside the Freedesktop SDK (var/flatpak/go-in-sdk), so it links against exactly the libraries of the runtime it ships in,

    3. wraps it into biscuittin_<version>_x86_64.flatpak with flatpak-builder (var/flatpak/),

    4. attaches the bundle and its checksum to the release.

The Flatpak is the only download; there are no archives or bare binaries.

Run the workflow by hand (Actions > Build > Run workflow) to build a snapshot Flatpak as a workflow artifact, without releasing.

Building a Flatpak locally

make flatpak                            # dist/biscuittin_dev_x86_64.flatpak
goreleaser release --snapshot --clean   # the release build, without publishing

Both compile in the SDK, and need flatpak-builder and, from Flathub, org.freedesktop.Platform//26.08, org.freedesktop.Sdk//26.08 and org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.golang//26.08.

The docs site is built by .github/workflows/docs.yml. It is published to GitHub Pages only when the repository is public (Pages is not available on a private repo on the free plan).