Creating a release silently (without sending notifications out).

[sbc100]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Feature Request

💬 Feature/Topic Area

API

Body

In the emscripten project we historically just created tags, and not releases. We recently switched to publishing releases, and I'd like to create releases retrospectively for all the old tags that we have (maybe around ~200 of them).

However if I create the releases using the API I think that would generated ~200 emails for all the subscribers to our repo. Can we have an option to create release without sending out those emails?

It would also be great if we could set the date for the release to match the historical date of the tagged commit.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[ThePhantom-S]

Managing Retrospective Releases (GitHub Constraints)

GitHub does not provide a native way to suppress notifications for new releases, nor does it allow backdating release timestamps via the API.

Recommended Workflow:

1. Use Drafts: Create all 200 releases as drafts via the API. Draft releases do not trigger email notifications or UI alerts for users.
2. Publish Strategically: Publish the drafts in small batches over time rather than all at once.
3. Community Transparency: Before publishing, create a pinned issue or update your README to notify your users:

   "We are currently retroactively generating GitHub Releases for historical tags. We apologize for the influx of notifications and appreciate your patience."

4. Alternative Documentation: If timestamp accuracy is critical, bypass the GitHub Releases UI and maintain a comprehensive CHANGELOG.md or a dedicated website that links directly to your git tags, as these are not subject to GitHub's notification engine.