RMT - Release Management Tool

RMT is a handy tool to help releasing new version of your software. You can define the type of version generator you want to use (example: semantic versioning), where you want to store the version (in a changelog file, as a VCS tag…) and a list of action that will be executed and before or after the release of a new version.

Installation

In order to use RMT your project should use Composer as RMT will be installed as a dev-dependency. Just go to your project root directory and execute:

composer require --dev liip/rmt:1.0.*

Then you must initialize RMT by running the following command:

php vendor/liip/rmt/command.php init

This command will create a .rmt.yml config file and a RMT executable script in your root folder. You can now start using RMT by executing:

./RMT

Once here, your best option is to pick one of the configuration examples below and to adapt it to your needs.

If you are using a versioning tool, we recommend to add both composer files (composer.json and composer.lock), the RMT configuration file(.rmt.yml) and the RMT executable script to it. The vendor directory should be ignored since it is populated simply by running composer install

Usage

Using RMT is very straightforward, just run the command:

./RMT release

RMT will then do the following tasks:

1. Execute the prerequisites checks
2. Ask the user to answers potentials questions
3. Execute the pre-release actions
4. Release
   • Generate a new version number
   • Persist the new version number
5. Execute the post-release actions

Here is an output example:

Additional commands

The release command is the main behavior of the tool, but some extra commands are available:

• current will show your project current version number (alias version)
• changes display the changes that will be incorporated in the next release
• config display the current config (already merged)
• init create (or reset) the .rmt.yml config file

Configuration

All RMT configurations have to be done in the .rmt.yml. The file is divided in 5 root elements:

• vcs: The type of VCS you are using, can be git, svn or none
• prerequisites: A list [] of prerequisites that must be matched before starting the release process
• pre-release-actions: A list [] of actions that will be executed before the release process
• version-generator: The generator to use to create a new version (mandatory)
• version-persister: The persister to use to store the versions (mandatory)
• post-release-actions: A list [] of actions that will be executed after the release

All the entry of this config are working the same. You have to specify the class you want to handle the action. Example:

version-generator: "simple"`
version-persister:
   vcs-tag:
       tag-prefix: "v_"

RMT also support JSON config, but we recommend you to use YML.

Branch specific config

Something you want to use a different release strategy according to the VCS branch, for example, you want to add a entry into a CHANGELOG only in the master branch. To do so, you have to place your default config into a root element named _default. Then you can override parts is this default config for the branch master. Example:

_default:
    version-generator: "simple"
    version-persister: "vcs-tag"
master:
    pre-release-actions: [changelog-update]

You can use the command RMT config To see the merge result between _default and your current branch

Version generator

Build-in version number generation strategy

• simple: This generator is doing a simple increment (1,2,3...)
• semantic: A generator which implements Semantic versioning

Version persister

Class in charge of saving/retrieving the version number

• vcs-tag: Save the version as a VCS tag
• changelog: Save the version in the changelog file

Prerequisite actions

Prerequisite actions are executed before the interactive part

• working-copy-check: check that you don't have any VCS local changes
• display-last-changes: display your last changes
• tests-check: run the project test suite
  • Option command: command to run (default: phpunit)
  • Option expected_exit_code: expected return code (default: 0)

Actions

Actions can be used for pre or post release parts.

• changelog-update: Update a changelog file. This action is further configured to use a specific formatter.
  • Option format: simple, semantic or addTop (default: simple)
  • Option file: path from .rmt.yml to changelog file (default: CHANGELOG)
  • Option dump-commits: write all commit messages since the last release into the changelog file (default: false)
  • Option insert-at: only for addTop formatter: Number of lines to skip from the top of the changelog file before adding the release number (default: 0)
• vcs-commit: commit all files of the working copy (only use it with the working-copy-check prerequisite)
  • Option commit-message: specify a custom commit message. %version% will be replaced by the current / next version strings.
• vcs-tag: Tag the last commit
• vcs-publish: Publish the changes (commits and tags)
• composer-update: Update the version number in a composer file
• update-version-class: Update the version constant in a class file.
  • Option class: path to class to be updated, or fully qualified class name of the class containing the version constant
  • Option pattern: optional, use to specify the string replacement pattern in your version class. %version% will be replaced by the current / next version strings. For example you could use const VERSION = '%version%';. If you do not specify this option, every occurrence of the version string in the file will be replaced.

Extend it

RMT is providing some existing actions, generators and persisters. But if you need, you can create your own. Just create a PHP script in your project, and reference it in the configuration with it's relative path:

version-generator: "bin/myOwnGenerator.php"

or with parameters:

version-persister:
    name: "bin/myOwnGenerator.php"
    parameter1: value1

As an example, you can look at the script /bin/UpdateApplicationVersionCurrentVersion.php configured here.

Configuration examples

Most of the time, it will be easier for you to pick up and example bellow and to adapt it to your needs.

No VCS, changelog updater only

version-generator: semantic
version-persister: changelog

Using Git tags, simple versioning and prerequisites

vcs: git
version-generator: simple
version-persister: vcs-tag
prerequisites: [working-copy-check, display-last-changes]

Using Git tags with prefix, semantic versioning and pushing automatically

vcs: git
version-generator: semantic
version-persister:
    name: vcs-tag
    prefix : "v_"
post-release-actions: [vcs-publish]

Using semantic versioning on master and simple versioning on topic branches

_default:
    vcs: git
    prerequisites: [working-copy-check]
    version-generator: simple
    version-persister:
        name: vcs-tag
        tag-prefix: "{branch-name}_"
    post-release-actions: [vcs-publish]

# This entry allow to override some parameters for the master branch
master:
    prerequisites: [working-copy-check, display-last-changes]
    pre-release-actions:
        changelog-update:
            format: semantic
            file: CHANGELOG.md
            dump-commits: true
        update-version-class:
            class: Doctrine\ODM\PHPCR\Version
            pattern: const VERSION = '%version%';
        vcs-commit: ~
    version-generator: semantic
    version-persister: vcs-tag

Contributing

If you would like to help, to submit one of your action script or just to report a bug: just go on the project page: https://github.com/liip/RMT

Requirements

PHP 5.3 Composer

Authors

• Laurent Prodon Liip AG
• David Jeanmonod Liip AG
• and others contributors

License

RMT is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details