github/release-date displaying incorrect date

[danielwerg]

Are you experiencing an issue with...

• shields.io
• My own instance
• badge-maker NPM package

🪲 Description

🔗 https://img.shields.io/github/release-date/danielwerg/r6api.js?label=last%20release

🔗 Latest release (March 16, 2021)

[chris48s]

If I request https://api.github.com/repos/danielwerg/r6api.js/releases/latest
the response says

...
  "created_at": "2020-12-01T18:54:16Z",
  "published_at": "2021-03-16T12:32:03Z",
...

Clearly we are presenting the created_at date. I'm struggling to find a clear explanation of exactly what each one means in the docs. Any idea where there is such a large discrepancy between the two in your case?

[danielwerg]

Seems like created_at represents tag date and published_at is date of publishing release. Honestly I just assumed that "GitHub Release Date" would refer to published_at as a date.

Any idea where there is such a large discrepancy between the two in your case

I can't exactly remember but I'm guessing it is because I pushed this commit by accident.

[calebcartwright]

Seems like created_at represents tag date and published_at is date of publishing release

Yes that's my thinking as well. GitHub can be awfully fuzzy when it comes to the distinction between tags and releases (a common source of confusion for our users), and I would imagine this API response is reflective of/analogous to "unreleased" tags being enumerated within the "Releases" view without all the release-associated metadata.

If we were starting greenfield then I actually feel like there would have been a good case to be made that we should use published_at if the intent of the badge is to reflect GitHub's "Releases", but I don't think that's a change we can make at this point in the absence of a functional time machine.

Maybe we should just add a query param with the default staying with created_at to give users the flexibility to choose?

[chris48s]

It is a different issue, but this feels like it fits in the same box as #6236