Create github_release.md

_posts/github_release.md

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+---
+title: Squashing commits & a simple GitHub release/notes workflow
+date: 2025-01-20
+type: post
+author: Beej
+tags:
+  - Dev
+---
+
+- [GitHub Desktop](https://desktop.github.com/download/) offers a really convenient UI for squashing commits
+  - in a nutshell, you might want to squash when you make a lot of little edits to things like README.MD and you want that to all look like one clean save event in the commit history =)
+  - easy steps:
+    1. load your repo
+    1. make sure you fetch the latest via far right button on upper toolbar
+    1. nav into the history tab
+    1. the commits you want to combine via shift+left_mouse
+    1. right mouse one of the commits and select "squash" - tips here:
+       - right mouse the one with the description you prefer
+       -  make sure to clean up the description box before pushing back to origin
+    1. lastly, push the mods back up via the far right toolbar button
+    ![image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/038ece87-925e-40e4-a089-aa15be019ea8){:width="400px"}
+- see this minimal [custom github workflow](https://github.com/Beej126/KingstonFuryRgbCLI/blob/main/.github/workflows/build-release.yml) for my simple take on rolling the commit messages into release notes along with a compiled build zipped into an "asset" attached to each release
+  - i'm choosing to make the release a manual launch vs pure CD upon commit so i can take the time to squash before creating the release
+  - having clean commits via squashing plays right into using them direcctly for release notes
+  - there's lots of stuff out there for leveraging milestones, issues & PRs for more sophisticated release/notes process, this is meant to be for small personal projects