The scripts and description assumes that you already have setup a release-management pipeline with e.g. Travis, Github and Semantic-Release. The default semantic-release branch is master.
Let's say you are at version v1.3.0 of your package and a customer needs a bugfix in an old version v1.0.1. The execution of npx release-tools create-release-branch --base-tag=v1.0.1 --release-branch-name=release-2017-10 --npm-token=<token> creates a new branch release-2017-10. From now on you can just add patch commits to release-2017-10. semantic-release will handle the versioning automatically and counts up step by step v1.0.2, v1.0.3 and so on. master just works like expected and counts up from v1.3.0 if you merge a pull request.
When you have a release cycle (e.g. 1 month), you maybe have to provide a stable package for customers every month. Your latest version on master is v1.3.0 at the end of the sprint and you want to prepare a release branch with fixes for customers.
- The versioning of
masterand the release branch shouldn't overlap. therefore, you have to bump the minor version of the master branch before creating the release branch. Executegit commit --allow-empty -m "feat: bump minor version for release management", create and merge a PR tomaster.semantic-releasewill create versionv1.4.0and therefore the release-branch wont overlap for1.3.x - Execute
npx release-tools create-release-branch --base-tag=v1.3.0 --release-branch-name=release-2017-12 --npm-token=<token>- As in example one, this script creates a new branchrelease-2017-12, where you can make patches forv1.3.xand you won't have a conflict withv1.4.0and newer versions.