Release version tagging

When a build is released commit must be tagged with release version tag. Release tags are identified as tags with a friendly name that matches the release tag format. This format is used to extract the released version (<major>.<minor>.<patch>).

Tip

Semantic versioning conveys meaning about underlying code and what has been modified to those who consume releases. What is "a release" needs to target on user/consumer that will benefit from knowing if the build has breaking changes, features, or only fixes.

That user may be an internal customer (such as a testing team or other teams) or external users like the devlopment community consuming open source projects. Often marketing are focused on a product MVP and use driven naming versioning.

Product naming and versioning is often best separated from software versioning.

Default release tag format

The default release tag format is:

  v<major>.<minor>.<patch>

Or, in regular expression format:

  ^v(?<version>\d+\.\d+\.\d+)"

Default release version tag friendly name example matching:

✔ Will match	❌ With NOT match
`v1.2.3` `v1.2.3 with red grapes`	`1.2.3` `release v1.2.3` `release` `v1.2`

For example, tag friendly names that will match this default format include:

  v1.2.3
  v1.2.3 our big beautiful pink release

Configuring the release tag format

The release tag format is configurable by setting the build property Git2SemVer_ReleaseTagFormat to a regular expressing that will match tags that have the desired friendly name.

Important

This regular expression must:

Contain the version placeholder text %VERSION%.
NOT start with the reserved prefixes: ^, tag: , or .gsm.

The default release tag format equivalent to v%VERSION%. The Git2SemVer_ReleaseTagFormat build property is set the project file or in a directory build properties file like Directory.Build.props.

For example:

<PropertyGroup>
    <Git2SemVer_ReleaseTagFormat>MyRelease %VERSION%</Git2SemVer_ReleaseTagFormat>
</PropertyGroup>

Examples:

Git2SemVer_ReleaseTagFormat	✔ Will match	❌ With NOT match
`%VERSION%`	`1.2.3` `1.2.3 with red grapes`	`v1.2.3` `release 1.2.3` `release` `1.2`
`release: %VERSION%`	`release: 1.2.3` `release: 1.2.3 with red apples`	`release 1.2.3` `my release: 1.2.3`
`.*release: %VERSION%`	`release: 1.2.3` `my release: 1.2.3` `green apples release: 1.2.3`	`release 1.2.3`

Table of Contents

Release version tagging

Tip

Default release tag format

Configuring the release tag format

Important