---
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 a 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.

### Whether `create_release` creates a missing tag is unconfirmed

`create_release` takes both `tag_name` and `target` (a commitish), and that shape *suggests* Gitea
creates the tag at `target` when `tag_name` does not already exist. That is inferred from the API
shape, not confirmed by any source this skill was built from (`references/sources.md`) — so treat it
as an assumption, not behaviour. When the caller depends on the tag existing, verify it afterward
with `get_tag` (or `list_tags`) rather than reporting it as created. `create_tag` is the only call
confirmed to create one.

## 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

`is_draft` and `is_pre_release` 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.

Getting this wrong is not cheaply repairable. The gitea-mcp release surface is `create_release`,
`get_release`, `get_latest_release`, `list_releases` and `delete_release` — there is **no update or
edit tool**, so a published release's flags cannot be corrected in place. The only remedy is
`delete_release` plus a fresh `create_release`, a destructive round trip; meanwhile a beta published
without `is_pre_release` is the release `get_latest_release` returns. Set the flags in the create
call.

Note the input/output naming mismatch: the input param is `is_draft`, but the release object
returned by the API uses `draft` (and `prerelease`) as the field names. `draft` is never a valid
input key — passing `draft: true` to `create_release` is silently ignored rather than erroring.

## 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.