release-notes

name: release-notes description: Draft CUE GitHub release notes from a commit range. Use when writing or assisting with the curated release-note prose for a CUE release — minor, pre-release (alpha/rc), or patch.

Drafting CUE release notes

The release body is the GitHub release text. Write only the curated, hand-judged prose. The trailing <details> "Full list of changes since vX.Y.Z" block is tool-generated — ignore it entirely.

Structure

Curated prose = an optional preamble, then ## sections (optionally split by #### subsections).

Preamble. If the release has any breaking change, the first line is verbatim:

Changes which may break some users are marked below with: :warning:

Omit it otherwise (typical of patch releases).

Sections, in this fixed order; omit any that are empty: ## Language · ## Evaluator · ## `cmd/cue` · ## LSP server · ## Encodings · ## Standard library · ## Go API. Lead with the headline feature when one dominates, overriding the order (e.g. the new cue lsp led v0.15.0).

Subsections (####) group a large section or a flagship item:

Named experiments/features (#### The new `try` experiment): 1–3 paragraphs on what it does and how to enable it (@experiment(...) or a language version), with links to the how-to, proposal, and spec CL.
#### Performance / #### Other changes split ## Evaluator when there is substantial performance work.
A #### may carry :warning: when the whole subsection is breaking.

Entry style

One change per paragraph (blank-line separated, not bullet lists); each a complete sentence or two. Closely related changes to one flag/command/feature may share a paragraph.
Write for CUE users, not evaluator authors. Describe the observable effect, not the implementation. Avoid internals ("arcs/vertices", "scope chain", "pushdown", "materializing fields"); name the symptom ("failed as an incomplete value or a cycle", "relative references now resolve correctly"). Internal/roadmap terms (evalv4, "comparing to bottom") may appear only as forward-looking context.
Tense/voice: descriptive present or imperative — "The new --chdir flag …", "cue import --path now skips …", "Fix a panic which could occur when …".
Backticks for anything code-like: flags (--outfile), commands (cue mod publish), identifiers, keywords, attributes (@embed), env vars ($DOCKER_AUTH_CONFIG), types. Name encodings plainly in prose ("the JSON Schema encoder", "the ProtoBuf decoder"); use the import path (encoding/jsonschema) only for a specific API symbol such as GenerateConfig.NameFunc.
Breaking changes: prefix :warning:, and phrase so the impact and migration path are clear.
Regressions name the version that introduced them ("a regression introduced in v0.12.0"); plain bugs need not.
Quantify performance ("up to 80% faster", "memory down by as much as 60%"); credit the Unity service where relevant.
Aggregate many small same-theme fixes into one paragraph, often closing with gratitude: "A number of panics and other bugs … have been fixed; thank you to all who reported these."
Reminders: ongoing multi-release experiments may get a one-line note at the top of ## Language.

What to include

A 300+-commit release yields ~20–40 prose entries. The test for every candidate is: would a user notice or care? Membership in an Include category is necessary, not sufficient — drop or aggregate a change whose audience is narrow or whose effect is cosmetic (a reworded error, a usage-line tweak, a doc fix). A lean, high-signal section beats an exhaustive list.

When a change fixes a GitHub issue, the issue's engagement signals how many users are affected: two or more 👍 reactions, or four or more unique commenters, indicates the change matters to multiple users and is worth including.

Include:

New language features, syntax, experiments (and experiments going stable, renamed, or reworked).
New or changed CLI flags, commands, and behaviors.
New stdlib functions/packages; new or changed public Go API (cue, cue/ast, cue/load, …), including deprecations.
New encoding support and encoder/decoder fixes (JSON Schema, YAML, TOML, Protobuf, cue get go).
Bug fixes users hit — especially panics and regressions.
**Major evaluator changes/refactors — summarize in simple, user-facing terms and explain why (the bugs it resolves, the future work it enables, or if it helps performance).
Performance/memory improvements, quantified.
LSP features and notable fixes.
Breaking changes and removals — always, with :warning:, including removal of long-deprecated APIs.

Exclude: ordinary internal refactors and cleanup (major evaluator reworks excepted, above); test, test-framework, and regression-test commits; CI, build, tooling, and dependency bumps; doc-only and comment fixes; anything with no observable effect on the CLI, the language, or the Go API.

Release types

Minor (vX.Y.0): full treatment — ## Language with experiment subsections, performance write-ups, every applicable section; reference the previous minor as the diff base.
Pre-release (-alpha.N / -rc.N): same structure as the minor it leads to; content accumulates into the final .0. RCs often document late design tweaks under a :warning: subsection.
Patch (vX.Y.Z, Z>0): short and fix-focused — usually no ## Language section, no warning legend; phrase entries as "Fix a …".