---
topic: conventions
source_keys:
  - context7-websites-gitea
  - context7-gitea-tea-cli
---

# Release and tag conventions

Practitioner conventions that inform *how* to use the mechanics in `call-signatures.md` — not
additional tool schemas.

## Release wraps a tag, not the reverse

A release is a title, body (notes), and draft/prerelease flags layered on top of an existing or
newly-created tag. The tag is the git-level object (a name pointing at a commit); the release is a
Gitea-level metadata wrapper around it. This is why `delete_release` and `delete_tag` are separate
calls with separate identifiers (numeric id vs. tag name) — removing the wrapper never implies
removing the underlying pointer, and vice versa.

## Semver tag naming

Per the `tea` CLI (the reference Gitea client), tag names conventionally follow semver with a `v`
prefix: `v1.2.0`, `v2.0.0-beta.1`. This is a convention observed by tooling and humans, not a
Gitea-enforced constraint — the API accepts any string as `tag_name`. Don't validate or rewrite a
caller-supplied tag name against semver; just pass it through.

## Draft and prerelease are explicit flags

`draft` and `is_pre_release`/`prerelease` are booleans the caller sets directly on `create_release`
— Gitea does not infer either from the tag name, even though the `-beta`/`-rc` suffix convention
above is commonly used to signal a prerelease to humans. When a user asks to "cut a beta" or
"publish a release candidate," set `is_pre_release: true` explicitly in the same call rather than
relying on the tag string to carry that meaning.

## Release notes sourcing

Practitioner convention (per `tea`) is to source release notes (`body`) from a changelog file
rather than typing them inline for each release — useful context when a caller asks to "generate"
or "use the changelog for" release notes rather than write them from scratch.