Today we would like to introduce a new feature called "GitHub Sync". If you keep your release notes on GitHub, changes are you have an open source package, an app or website or essentially anything that can be hosted on GitHub and shared with others.

Not everyone is on GitHub though. If you have a website, you can make use of our widget to show your release notes directly where your users are. Just keep updating your releases notes on GitHub and sync them with Releases anytime you like.

In a future update, we will add the option to auto-sync release notes. "GitHub Sync" is currently only available for public repositories.

To get started, head over to the "GitHub Sync" settings and connect your repository.

Today we shipped our widget and also added a sitemap to all public changelogs.

Widget

Use our widget to show the latest changelog entries directly within a website. No need for users to leave your website or platform. Implementation should not take longer than 2 minutes and is really straightforward.

To see a demo and setup instructions, log in to your account and head over to the "Widget" settings.

Sitemap

We also added a sitemap.xml to all changelogs. You can, for example, submit this sitemap to the Google Search Console or use it anyway you need. Just append /sitemap.xml at the end of your workspace url, e.g. example.com/sitemap.xml

Today we added a new theme called "Minimalist". As the name suggests, it's really minimal. The theme is available in light and dark mode.

We also added a new option to upload a custom logo for dark mode.

To change a theme, head over to the "Appearance" settings. This is also where you can set an optional logo for dark mode.

Apart from a bunch of smaller improvements across the backend, we also implemented the possibility to export a workspace.

This will give you all entries, files, tags and subscribers. It is also possible to only export subscribers.

To export the entire workspace, head over to the workspace settings and scroll down to the "Export" section. Exporting a full workspace should not take longer than 30 seconds. Exports will be deleted after 7 days, but a new export can be generated at any time.

Today we are pleased to release access to our API.

You can access workspace related resources via the following endpoints:

GET /api/workspace
GET /api/entries
GET /api/entries/{id}
GET /api/tags
GET /api/subscribers
POST /api/subscribers

To read more about how to access and use the API, check out our help center.

Today we added a new theme called "Commit". This theme is a Tailwind UI template and fits perfectly for Releases. You're currently looking right at it.

We also added the possibility to subscribe via RSS. You can find the feed by adding /feed to the main url. RSS readers will then recognize when updates were published to your changelog.

Background jobs are running

For the past few days, we tested our automated background jobs to make sure everything runs fine behind the scenes. So we can be sure that emails are dispatched, scheduled posts become published when the "Publish on" date arrives and so on. Apart from one slight hick-up, everything seems to run just fine and is ready for production. 🤖

Public beta status + final touches

We invited 20 people to try Releases prior to the public beta and the feedback has been great so far. A few days ago we actually opened the public beta and a few more people have joined. We are confident that by the end of this week, we can "remove" the beta status and just be live.

There are still a few minor things missing and also some smaller UI improvements have to be made until then. But yeah, Friday should be the "official" launch. We're excited! 🎉

We're excited to launch our public beta today. 🎉

The past week we fixed bugs and everything was polished. We also added a search into the backend area. We improved the speed for custom domain validation and made a few tweaks to the dark mode.

All in all, things are turning out great so far. There are still a few features missing that we have planned for the initial launch later this month, but they are coming soon.

Today we're happy to publish the first ever post to "Releases", our ridiculously simple approach to changelog software. "Releases" is sort of a "spin-off" of FeatureShift, our fully-fledged feedback software.

Why build a new product?

A couple dozen customers and interested people asked if it was possible to only maintain a changelog with FeatureShift and not use any of the other features, such as a roadmap, customer feedback / feature requests. Our goal with FeatureShift was to offer a complete product where you could do all those things.

We did not want to strip away functions. And we certainly did not want to add more settings and overhead to our software. So we started "Releases" – a completely separate product that only has one purpose: maintaining a changelog.

Can I sign up?

Not yet. There are still a few things to do until we're ready to let people use it. We aim to publicly launch later this month. The initial launch will have some missing features that will be added over the following days and weeks.

Be sure to follow along. 👋