# release-drafter/release-drafter

Drafts your next release notes as pull requests are merged into master.

Repository: https://github.com/release-drafter/release-drafter
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/release-drafter
Homepage: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-drafter
Language: TypeScript
License: ISC
License Family: permissive
Topics: github-app, action, release-automation, release-notes, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-22T22:57:51+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 95, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2988, "days_push": 11, "days_rel": 35, "gap_med": 8.5, "n_releases_24m": 17}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3929, forks 379 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:29.936608+00:00)

## What it is
Release Drafter is a GitHub Action, GitHub App, and Node.js CLI that automatically drafts release notes as pull requests are merged into your main branch. It categorizes changes via labels, suggests the next semantic version, and keeps a draft GitHub release up to date until you publish it.

## Use cases
- automatically draft release notes from merged pull requests
- generate a changelog for my GitHub repository
- suggest the next semver version based on merged PR labels
- categorize merged PRs into features, fixes, and maintenance sections
- run release note drafting locally or in CI via npx
- validate that a pull request has proper release categories

## When to choose
- you host your project on GitHub and want release notes maintained automatically
- you want label-driven categorization and automatic semver version resolution
- you prefer a zero-maintenance GitHub Action or App over manual changelog writing

## When to avoid
- your repository is not hosted on GitHub
- you need fully custom changelog formats beyond the templating options
- you want release notes generated from commit messages rather than pull requests

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: workflow-automation, ci-cd, developer-tools, documentation
- domain: developer-tools, version-control, apis
- platform: cli
- tags: github-action, github-app, release-notes, release-automation, changelog, semver, typescript, automation, nodejs, web-server

## Member repositories
- release-drafter/release-drafter (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.936608+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:24:42.052930+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/release-drafter/release-drafter (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.936608+00:00, sha 1283f6d92775)
  - homepage: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-drafter (fetched 2026-08-29T09:18:47.438956+00:00, sha 4bfd81e5b14e)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/release-drafter (fetched 2026-08-29T09:18:47.443366+00:00, sha 41d35509d2fa)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.