Release Tracking setup

GitClear offers numerous paths to track when the code in a repo has been released to production. In accordance with the Accelerate metrics, top tier teams target making a release to production every business day. Different types of products will naturally release at different frequencies, so as long as you make a release more than once per month, you can avoid the lowest tier performers:


The distribution of performance among Google's study participants


Once you have set up a release tracking rule, you can see the frequency of your releases graphed in the "Velocity" tab under "Devops Stats"


linkAdding a new release tracking rule

To set up release tracking on GitClear, you have five options to detect when a release has occurred, first visit Settings -> Release Tracking



Then create a new rule to be used, or review releases you have generated through the API:

If you aren't designating releases through the API, this form can let you configure what event constitutes a code release


Some additional details about the deploy markers:


link0. A branch starts with case-specific string

If a branch begins with the string given, it will be marked as a release.


link1. Commit message contains a specific string

For example, if your commits always contain the term “Cached asset deploy,” then this term could be entered and any commit message containing this case-insensitive series of words will be marked as a “release”


link2. Commit message matches a specific string

If you have a specific string that occurs in commits that correspond to a release, that can be used as a hook to indicate when a release has been made.


link3. Git tag contains a specific substring

If you apply a tag on releases, then you can provide a unique substring of your tag naming pattern to designate a release. For example, if you always release with a tag alpha-v0.01, then the substring alpha could be used to detect when a release is made.


link4. Commit pushed to a particular branch

If you use Heroku or another system that automatically deploys when you push to a branch, this release tracking option is for you. Any time you push a commit to this branch, it will be detected as a release of the repo in which the commit was pushed.


link5. API call

If you would like to designate a release via a RESTful API call, check out the release tracking endpoint within our API documentation here.