⚠️ Warning ⚠️
Simple Releaser is alpha software and probably not yet ready for general use. Expect rough edges, breaking changes, and an occasional gremlin.

Simple Releaser

Simple Releaser is a configurable command-line tool for validating, building, tagging, and publishing Python package releases.

The PyPI distribution is named simple-releaser. Once installed, it can be invoked as either simple-releaser or release.

Simple Releaser grew out of a direct copy of the release workflow used by the QRtsy Project with significant changes to generalize it to accommodate different release workflows. Simple Releaser is deliberately designed to be simple and is unlikely to grow much beyond this initial vision. If you've got more complex needs, you may wish to consider some alternatives.

Project assumptions

Run Simple Releaser from a directory containing the releaser configuration (releaser.toml by default). This directory may also be the project root, or the releaser configuration may point at a separate project directory.

The project being released is expected to have:

• Project configuration, including name and version, in pyproject.toml.
• A changelog file named CHANGELOG.md, with Unreleased and version sections.
• A Git repo with an origin remote.

When publishing a repository release locally, the project is also expected to have:

• A repository hosted by Codeberg or GitHub.
• Repository host tokens or overrides supplied through environment variables or a .env file beside the releaser configuration when needed.

Installation

A convenient way to install Simple Releaser as a standalone command-line tool is with pipx:

pipx install simple-releaser

Once installed, Simple Releaser can then be invoked as either:

release

or:

simple-releaser

Commands

The available CLI commands are:

release -h
usage: release [-h] [--dry-run] {init,show-config,clean,validate,build,tag,to_pypi,to_repo,run} ...

Validate, build, archive, and publish Python project releases.

A simple project release policy:
  - Validate that release is ready
  - Run any project-specific checks
  - Build package and archive it
  - Create release tag
  - Publish package to PyPI
  - Publish release and assets to repository host

positional arguments:
  {init,show-config,clean,validate,build,tag,to_pypi,to_repo,run}
    init                initialize Simple Releaser configuration
    show-config         show resolved configuration and project metadata
    clean               check if project is a clean git repository
    validate            validate that a new release is ready
    build               build and archive the current version
    tag                 create and push the current release tag
    to_pypi             publish the archived distributions to PyPI
    to_repo             publish the release to repository host
    run                 run the configured release process

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --dry-run             show what would be done without making changes

Dry run

Pass --dry-run before or after a command to perform the normal read-only preflight and describe the release actions without making changes. For example:

release run --dry-run
release --dry-run tag

Dry-run mode still reads project/repository metadata, checks that the Git working tree is clean, validates the version and changelog, and inspects existing Git tags. It does not run configured project commands, create the release archive, create or push Git tags, publish to PyPI, or call the Codeberg/GitHub release APIs. Because the build is simulated, later dry-run tasks use descriptive artifact placeholders rather than requiring _releases/<version> to already exist.

The read-only show-config, clean, and validate commands behave the same with or without --dry-run.

Initialization

Run release init from the directory where the releaser configuration should live:

release init

If that directory contains the pyproject.toml for a project, Simple Releaser creates a minimal releaser.toml for that project. Otherwise it prompts for the project directory and then records the given project_path in the generated configuration. Relative paths are used when possible. An existing releaser configuration is never overwritten.

release init --dry-run performs the same project discovery but only reports where the configuration would be created.

Configuration

Simple Releaser requires a configuration file in the current working directory. By default it is named releaser.toml. To use a different filename, set the RELEASER_CONFIG environment variable.

When the directory also contains the project's pyproject.toml, no project path is needed:

tag_prefix = "v"

[commands]
run = "check build tag to_pypi to_repo"

If the project lives elsewhere, project_path is required and must identify a directory containing pyproject.toml. Relative paths are resolved from the directory containing the releaser configuration; absolute paths are also accepted. For example:

project_path = "../my-project"
repo_host = "github"
tag_prefix = "v"

[commands]
run = "check build tag to_pypi to_repo"

Set auto_confirm = true at the top level to allow PyPI publication without an interactive confirmation prompt, for example in a deliberately unattended release workflow. It defaults to false; even with automatic confirmation, Simple Releaser still prints the project/version/artifact summary and PyPI URL before running the publish command.

Build artifacts are archived under _releases in the same directory as the releaser config file. If _releases is in the project directory, then Simple Releaser will automatically add a .gitignore file to exclude it from Git. In the unlikely event that excluding this folder from Git is not desired, set gitignore_releases = false at the top level to disable this feature.

Configurable commands

The [commands] section currently supports check, build, publish, and run. A value may be either a shell-like string or a TOML array of argument strings. The following forms are equivalent:

check = "uv run pytest"
check = ["uv", "run", "pytest"]

Quoting in a string may be used to preserve spaces within one argument:

check = 'python -c "print(1 + 1)"'

An empty string or empty array disables the task associated with that configured command. For example:

[commands]
check = ""
publish = ""

causes the check and to_pypi tasks to be skipped. The publish configuration name controls the to_pypi task.

Configuring check

The configured check command is the project's generic handoff to its own release-readiness policy. Tests, linters, type checks, documentation checks, project-specific validation, or any other prerequisite can live behind this one command. Since that policy is project-specific, check is disabled by default and must be customized for the project:

[commands]
check = ""

Simple Releaser deliberately does not try to model all of those project-specific tasks itself. A useful pattern is to point check at a project task runner, so the same check task can be used during development, in CI, and during a release without duplicating workflow configuration. Command strings are parsed into arguments but are not executed through a shell; compound shell logic is therefore also usually cleaner inside a task runner or project script.

See project checks and task runners for a discussion of Taskipy, Poe the Poet, Invoke, Hatch, PDM, Pixi, mise, just, Task, and how they fit this design.

The simple-releaser project uses this pattern itself. Its releaser.toml configures:

[commands]
check = "hatch run poe check"

Configuring build and publish

By default, Simple Releaser builds with build and publishes with twine:

[commands]
build = "{python} -m build --outdir {output}"
publish = "{python} -m twine upload --skip-existing {wheel} {sdist}"

Build and publish commands may use {python}, which expands to the absolute path of the Python interpreter running Simple Releaser. This lets an override deliberately use a tool installed alongside Simple Releaser rather than whichever python happens to be on PATH.

The default publisher uses Twine's normal authentication mechanisms, including keyring, .pypirc, and TWINE_* environment variables. For repository-host settings, Simple Releaser checks the process environment first and then falls back to the .env file beside the releaser configuration.

The {output} placeholder in build is replaced with the temporary directory where the build command must write the wheel and source distribution. A non-empty custom build command must include {output}. Publish commands may use {release_dir}, {wheel}, and {sdist} to refer to the verified archived release and its two distribution files. A custom publish command does not have to use a placeholder when the command already knows how to locate the artifacts it should publish.

The default build and publish commands work with most standards-compliant build backends declared in the [build-system] section of a project's pyproject.toml configuration. Projects that prefer their project-management tool's native build and publish commands can override the defaults. Typical equivalents are:

# Poetry
build = "poetry build --clean --output {output}"
publish = "poetry publish --skip-existing --dist-dir {release_dir}"

# Hatch
build = "hatch build --clean {output}"
publish = "hatch publish --no-prompt {wheel} {sdist}"

# uv
build = "uv build --no-sources --out-dir {output}"
publish = "uv publish {wheel} {sdist}"

# PDM
build = "pdm build --dest {output}"
publish = "pdm publish --no-build --skip-existing --dest {release_dir}"

Configuring run

The run command is an ordered list of task names. Its default value is:

[commands]
run = "check build tag to_pypi to_repo"

The available run task names are check, clean, validate, build, tag, to_pypi, and to_repo.

• clean is available for release flows that want an explicit clean-repository check at a particular point, but this is usually unnecessary because release validation already checks the working tree and tasks that require cleanliness enforce it themselves.
• validate may also be included explicitly, but again this is usually unnecessary since validation is already automatically done before run begins.

Both of these are included as options for custom release plans where revalidation or additional clean checks might be useful.

Local and CI release strategies

The run sequence also determines where the release process stops.

The default sequence performs the complete release locally:

[commands]
run = "check build tag to_pypi to_repo"

For a project whose remote CI publishes after a release tag is pushed, omit the local publication tasks:

[commands]
run = "check build tag"

Here the local build acts as a packaging preflight. Simple Releaser verifies that the distributions can be built and archived before tag creates and pushes the release tag. The remote workflow may then rebuild the tagged source and publish its own artifacts.

Projects with expensive, platform-specific, or otherwise CI-authoritative builds may omit the local build as well:

[commands]
run = "check tag"

In this form, Simple Releaser runs the project's configured check command and then creates and pushes the release tag; the remote workflow is responsible for both building and publishing. This avoids a duplicate local build, but a packaging failure will not be discovered until after the release tag has been pushed.

The configured check in these examples remains the project's own quality-check command, such as its tests, linters, and type checks. It is separate from Simple Releaser's release validation, which the CLI performs before the run sequence begins.

Because tag pushes the tag to origin, it can serve directly as the handoff to a tag-triggered CI workflow. Simple Releaser does not need to know which CI system handles the tag or how that system builds and publishes the release. When a release tag already exists locally or on origin, Simple Releaser reuses it only if it resolves to the current project commit; a conflicting tag aborts the release instead of being overwritten.

For a concrete GitHub Actions workflow using PyPI Trusted Publishing, see GitHub Actions and PyPI Trusted Publishing.

Repository host

The repository host and owner/repo coordinates are normally derived from the configured project's Git origin. HTTPS and SSH origins on codeberg.org and github.com are recognized automatically. tag_prefix controls the text prepended to the project version when creating and locating Git tags; it defaults to "v". Set it to an empty string to use bare version tags such as 1.2.3.

For unusual arrangements where the Git origin is not the repository that receives releases, repo_host may explicitly select codeberg or github; pair it with the corresponding repository override. Repository host values may be set as environment variables or in the .env file beside releaser.toml; an exported environment variable takes precedence over the same .env entry.

To publish to a Codeberg repository, set CODEBERG_TOKEN. Set CODEBERG_REPOSITORY=owner/repo to override the repository coordinates derived from the Git origin.

To publish to a GitHub repository, set GITHUB_TOKEN. Set GITHUB_REPOSITORY=owner/repo to override the derived repository coordinates. The GitHub token must have permission to create releases and upload release assets.

Before a non-dry-run run containing to_repo starts its first task, Simple Releaser verifies that the repository can be resolved and that the corresponding host token is available.

Development

For development purposes, some project checks and a test runner are defined as Poe tasks:

poe lint
poe format-check
poe typecheck
poe test

# Run all of the above
poe check 

The test suite can also be run across the matrix of supported Python versions, which currently includes Python 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14, using another Poe task:

poe test-matrix

A separate packaging smoke test creates isolated test environments, install the Simple Releaser wheel and sdist package artifacts, and performs some basic checks to verify that the packages are actually installable. This test can be invoked with another Poe task:

poe package-smoke

Finally, a more thorough check meant for CI runs the linters, type checks, tests across all supported Python versions, and the packaging smoke test. It can also be invoked locally via a Poe task:

poe ci