Releasing

A release is cut by publishing a GitHub release. The release workflow does the rest: it runs the same checks CI runs, packages the extension once, attaches that .vsix to the release, and publishes it to both marketplaces.

Steps

1. Bump the version in package.json and package-lock.json.

   The lock file records the package's own version in two places, and npm run lint fails if either disagrees with package.json:

   version:
     package-lock.json is 0.7.1 but package.json is 0.7.2
   

   Editing the three fields directly is enough; there is no need to run npm install, which would also re-resolve dependencies.

2. Add the entry to CHANGELOG.md. The lint check compares its newest heading against package.json, so the two have to agree.

3. Open a pull request and let CI pass. The release workflow repeats these checks, but failing here is cheaper than failing mid-publish.

4. Publish a GitHub release with the tag v<version> - v0.7.2 for version 0.7.2. The workflow refuses to publish when the tag and package.json disagree, so a mistyped tag stops before anything reaches a marketplace.

What the workflow does

Step	Notes
npm ci	from the lock file, so the build matches CI
format, lint, test	the same three commands CI runs
vsce package	once, into ibmi-languages-<version>.vsix
tag check	release tag must equal v<package.json version>
upload	attaches the .vsix to the GitHub release
publish	VS Code Marketplace, then Open VSX, from that same file

If the VS Code Marketplace publish fails, the Open VSX step never runs, and the release has gone to neither: fix the cause and run the workflow again.

When only one marketplace has the version

Stopping on the first failure keeps most runs all-or-nothing, but it cannot cover every case: if the Marketplace publish succeeds and Open VSX then fails, the version is already out on one of them and a publish cannot be rolled back. Re-running everything would fail on the marketplace that already has it.

Run the workflow by hand and set targets to the one still missing:

targets	Publishes to
both	both marketplaces - the default, and what a release does
vsce	VS Code Marketplace only
ovsx	Open VSX only

Secrets

Secret	Used for
VSCE_TOKEN	VS Code Marketplace, an Azure DevOps personal access token
OPEN_VSX	Open VSX access token

Running it by hand

workflow_dispatch runs the same job without a release: it packages and publishes, but skips the tag check and the upload, since there is no release to attach to. It takes the targets input described above, so it is also how you finish a release that only reached one marketplace.

It always packages from the default branch at the version currently in package.json, so check that is the version you mean before running it.

To package locally without publishing:

npm run package

.vscodeignore is an allowlist - everything is excluded, then the grammars, language configurations, icon and the three top-level documents are added back. Check the file list vsce prints if you add something the extension needs at runtime.