Automate Semantic Versioning in Your CLI Tool

Automate Semantic Versioning in Your CLI Tool Version management is the unsexy part of maintaining a CLI tool. Most developers either forget to bump versions, use inconsistent commit messages, or manually edit package.json before every release. This leads to confusing changelogs, missing releases, and users running outdated versions without knowing it. Let's automate this. We'll build a version management system that analyzes git commits, determines the correct version bump, generates changelogs, and publishes — all in one command. Conventional Commits → Automatic Version Bumps The Conventional Commits specification gives structure to commit messages: feat: add --json output flag → minor bump (1.0.0 → 1.1.0) fix: handle empty input gracefully → patch bump (1.1.0 → 1.1.1) feat!: redesign config file format → major bump (1.1.1 → 2.0.0) docs: update README examples → no bump chore: update dependencies → no bump Here's how to parse them: // lib/versioning.ts interface Commit { hash : strin