Bootstrapping monorel

monorel releases itself with monorel from v0.1.1 onward. The first release (v0.1.0) has to happen without monorel because the binary doesn't exist yet. This page documents that one-time bootstrap.

One-time only

After v0.1.0 ships, every subsequent release goes through monorel release --publish (locally or via the GitHub Action). Do not re-run this bootstrap on a healthy repo.

What ships in v0.1.0

• A GitHub Release for v0.1.0 with the rendered Keep-a-Changelog body.
• One archive per OS+arch attached to the Release: monorel_0.1.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz, monorel_0.1.0_darwin_arm64.tar.gz, etc.
• The repo's first git tag at v0.1.0.

Steps

1. Verify the working tree

git status                  # clean
go test ./...               # green
cd docs && bun run docs:build  # clean

2. Hand-write the v0.1.0 entry in CHANGELOG.md

monorel's normal flow writes CHANGELOG entries from changesets. For the bootstrap, edit CHANGELOG.md directly:

# Changelog

All notable changes to this project are documented in this file.

The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).

## [0.1.0] - 2026-04-30

Initial release.

### Major Changes

- ...

Commit:

git add CHANGELOG.md
git commit -m "chore(release): v0.1.0"

3. Tag and push

git tag -a v0.1.0 -m "monorel v0.1.0"
git push origin main
git push origin v0.1.0

4. The binary-build workflow runs

.github/workflows/build-release-binaries.yml triggers on the tag push. It runs GoReleaser, which:

• Builds the per-OS+arch binaries.
• Creates the GitHub Release for v0.1.0 (mode append creates the Release if it doesn't exist).
• Attaches the archives + a checksums file.

5. Edit the Release body

GoReleaser's auto-generated body is empty (changelog.disable: true). Paste the ## [0.1.0] section from CHANGELOG.md into the GitHub Release body via the UI.

(For v0.1.1 onward, monorel release --publish writes the body automatically; this manual step is only for the bootstrap.)

6. Verify the install path

go install monorel.disaresta.com/cmd/monorel@v0.1.0
monorel --version
# v0.1.0

And the GitHub Action wrapper:

- uses: disaresta-org/monorel/ci/github@v0.1.0
  with:
    command: pr

After bootstrap

From v0.1.1 on:

1. Author changesets via monorel add.
2. CI runs monorel preview --upsert on push to main → release PR opens / updates.
3. Merging the release PR runs monorel release --publish on the merge commit → tags pushed → binary-build workflow → archives attached.

The bootstrap workflow file (build-release-binaries.yml) is the only piece that survives the bootstrap; everything else converges on the monorel-driven flow.