Add an option to not mark maintenance releases as latest

I would like to have an option to not mark maintenance releases as latest on github.
Currently our main branch is on v4 and we've maintenance releases on v2.
Everytime a v2 get's released, it's marked as latest by default.
So an option to override would be very useful.

Hmm sounds like a bug to me in the first place. We probably just didn't get around to address this, or the APIs didn't exist at the time.

agreed. i cant think of a reason why a maintenance release should ever be marked as latest

I have the same issue.

There is a make_latest: string (defaults: true) in GH API -> https://github.com/proxy/docs.github.com/en/rest/releases/releases?apiVersion=2022-11-28#create-a-release

I'm thinking it should be added here:

github/lib/publish.js

Line 54 in c70cfbf

prerelease: isPrerelease(branch),

We do want to fix this. If you've investigated far enough to see a solution, please feel free to send a PR to keep this moving forward

Hello - is there any news on this issue? It looks like the linked PR has stalled...? 😢

Is there any kind of workaround anyone can recommend?

simply setting make_latest=legacy will probably fix it too?

I "fixed" this in my own repo by adding this step after running the release (GitHub Actions).

# Because semantic-release also marks maintenance releases as latest,
# we need to ensure that the highest semver release is marked as latest.
promote-release:
  needs: release
  name: Mark highest semver as latest
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest

  permissions:
    contents: write

  steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0

    - run: npm ci
    - name: Find and mark latest release
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
        script: |
          const semver = require('semver');
          const { owner, repo } = context.repo;

          console.log(`Fetching all releases for ${owner}/${repo}...`);
          const { data: allReleases } = await github.rest.repos.listReleases({
            owner,
            repo,
          });

          const sortedReleases = allReleases
            .filter(r => !r.draft && !r.prerelease && semver.valid(r.tag_name))
            .sort((a, b) => semver.rcompare(a.tag_name, b.tag_name));

          if (sortedReleases.length === 0) {
            core.info("No valid, non-prerelease releases found. Exiting.");
            return;
          }

          const latestRelease = sortedReleases[0];
          console.log(`Highest semver release found: ${latestRelease.tag_name}`);

          console.log(`Updating release ${latestRelease.tag_name} to be the new 'latest' release.`);
          await github.rest.repos.updateRelease({
            owner,
            repo,
            release_id: latestRelease.id,
            make_latest: 'true',
          });
          console.log(`Successfully marked ${latestRelease.tag_name} as the latest release.`);

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 12.0.5 🎉

The release is available on:

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀

not fixed

the new check seems not enough, we use this branches config:

{
  "branches": [
    {
      "name": "maint/+([0-9])?(.{+([0-9]),x}).x",
      "range": "${name.replace(/^maint\\//g, '')}"
    },
    "main"
  ]
}

https://github.com/containerbase/base/blob/main/.releaserc.json

please reopen, the make_latest also needs to be added here:

github/lib/publish.js

Lines 165 to 170 in f367e3a

    
           const patchRelease = { 
        
             owner, 
        
             repo, 
        
             release_id: releaseId, 
        
             draft: false, 
        
           };

https://github.com/proxy/docs.github.com/en/rest/releases/releases?apiVersion=2022-11-28#update-a-release

the patch is setting make_latest again to true by default. that only happens when publishing assets.

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 12.0.6 🎉

The release is available on:

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

Add an option to `not` mark maintenance releases as latest #817

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

	const patchRelease = {
	owner,
	repo,
	release_id: releaseId,
	draft: false,
	};

Add an option to not mark maintenance releases as latest #817

Description

Activity

gr2m commented on Apr 25, 2024

travi commented on Apr 25, 2024

michaelchambaud-eaton commented on Jul 24, 2024

travi commented on Jul 24, 2024

robfraz commented on Nov 13, 2024

viceice commented on Mar 1, 2025

scriptcoded commented on Aug 2, 2025

github-actions commented on Feb 7, 2026

viceice commented on Feb 11, 2026

viceice commented on Feb 11, 2026

viceice commented on Feb 11, 2026

viceice commented on Feb 11, 2026

github-actions commented on Feb 12, 2026

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions

Add an option to `not` mark maintenance releases as latest #817