PR Workflow

For teams that prefer a review step before releasing, bonvoy supports a PR-based workflow similar to release-please or changesets.

How It Works

push to main → bonvoy prepare → Release PR created
                                      │
                                 review & merge
                                      │
push to main → bonvoy shipit → detects merged PR → publish only

Step 1: bonvoy prepare

When code is pushed to main, bonvoy prepare:

1. Analyzes commits since last release
2. Calculates version bumps
3. Creates a release/<timestamp> branch
4. Updates package.json versions and changelogs
5. Pushes the branch and creates a PR
6. Saves tracking info to .bonvoy/release-pr.json

Step 2: Review

The PR shows:

• Which packages are being released
• What versions they're bumped to
• The full changelog for each package

Step 3: Merge & Publish

After the PR is merged, bonvoy shipit on main detects .bonvoy/release-pr.json and enters publish-only mode:

• Skips version calculation (already done in the PR)
• Publishes to npm
• Creates GitHub releases
• Cleans up the tracking file

GitHub Actions Setup

A single workflow handles both steps:

name: Release
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: write
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v6
        with:
          node-version: 22
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx bonvoy shipit
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

bonvoy shipit auto-detects the context:

• If .bonvoy/release-pr.json exists → publish-only mode
• Otherwise → creates a release PR (same as bonvoy prepare)

Configuration

export default {
  workflow: 'pr',
  baseBranch: 'main',
};

Tracking File

.bonvoy/release-pr.json contains:

{
  "prNumber": 42,
  "prUrl": "https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/42",
  "branch": "release/1707321600000",
  "baseBranch": "main",
  "createdAt": "2026-02-08T12:00:00.000Z",
  "packages": ["@scope/core", "@scope/utils"]
}

TIP

Add .bonvoy/release-pr.json to .gitignore if you don't want it tracked. The file is cleaned up automatically after publishing.

GitLab

The PR workflow also works with GitLab. Install @bonvoy/plugin-gitlab and it creates merge requests instead of pull requests.