GitHub Releases Atom Feed: Auto-Post Every New Version

Short answer: Every public GitHub repository publishes an Atom feed of its releases at github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases.atom, with no setup. Each entry carries the release title, the date, a link and the release notes. Paste that address into an auto-poster and every new version is announced on your social networks, a Discord or Telegram channel or a team chat. Tidy your release titles and notes first, decide how to treat pre-releases, use keyword filters to skip the versions you do not want to announce, and check the feed with curl before you rely on it.

For open-source maintainers and for companies that ship software, a release is news. Users want to know when a fix lands, contributors want to see their work credited, and the people who follow the project on social networks would rather be told than have to look. Yet writing a post for every patch release is a chore that is easily forgotten. GitHub already produces a machine-readable list of releases, so the announcement can be automatic. This guide explains which feeds GitHub provides, how to prepare releases so that they make good posts, and how to avoid the problems that appear when a feed is used for announcements.

The feeds GitHub already provides

GitHub exposes several Atom feeds for public repositories. They follow predictable patterns, and you do not need an account or a token to read them.

• Releases: https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases.atom lists published releases, newest first.
• Tags: https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/tags.atom lists tags, including those that have no release notes.
• Commits: https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/commits/BRANCH.atom lists commits on a branch, which is far too noisy for most announcements.
• Public activity: an address ending in .atom after a user name lists that person’s public activity.

For announcements, the releases feed is almost always the right choice. Tags are useful only when you tag versions but do not create releases, and commits belong in a developer channel, not in front of users. If you maintain several repositories, each has its own feed, and you can connect them to different channels.

What an entry contains

Each entry in the releases feed has a title, which is the name of the release, a link to the release page, a date and the release notes rendered as HTML. The identifier of the entry is derived from the release, so it stays the same as long as the release does. That makes the feed well suited to auto-posting: a new release is a new entry, and an old one does not come back. The details of the format are explained in Atom or RSS: does it matter for auto-posting; in short, every modern auto-poster, including PostRSS, reads Atom as well as RSS.

Check what your own feed looks like before you plan anything else.

curl -s https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases.atom | head -c 1500

You will see the title of the feed, the newest entries and their dates. If the output is empty or an error page, the repository may be private, renamed or missing releases. Feeds of private repositories require authentication, and an auto-poster cannot read them without a login, so use a public page for announcements or publish release notes on your own website.

Write releases that make good posts

An auto-poster builds a social post from the title and a short piece of the notes, so the quality of the post depends on the release itself. A few habits make a large difference.

• Use a clear release title. A name such as version 2.4.0 with a few words about the main change reads well. A title that only repeats a tag name is not helpful to a reader who does not know the project.
• Start the notes with a summary. Put one or two sentences at the top that say what changed and why it matters. The first lines are what a social post shows.
• Group the changes. Headings for new features, fixes and breaking changes help readers who open the page, and they keep the summary short.
• Credit contributors by name or handle, with their agreement where needed. It makes the post more personal and it is welcome.
• Add an image when it helps. A short animation or a screenshot of a new interface makes the release stand out. Remember that not every network shows the images from release notes, so also set a social preview image for the repository.

If you generate the notes automatically from pull requests, read the result once. Automatic notes can contain internal jargon, long lists of dependency updates and the names of branches, and none of that belongs in a post.

Pre-releases, drafts and patch versions

Not every release deserves an announcement. Drafts are visible only to people who can write to the repository, so they do not appear in a public feed. Pre-releases, such as release candidates and betas, may appear in the list, depending on how they are published, and a flood of them can annoy followers and confuse people who only want stable versions. Decide on a policy.

• Announce stable releases only by using a keyword filter that skips titles containing words such as beta, alpha or rc.
• Announce major and minor versions and skip patch releases, or send patch releases to a quieter channel for people who want every change.
• Use two channels: a public one for stable versions and a developer channel for everything.

Keyword filters are available in PostRSS, so you can apply the policy without changing your release process. If you prefer to keep the feed clean at the source, publish pre-release notes only in the issue tracker and create a release only when a version is ready.

What to put in the post and where it should go

For a major version, write a proper article on your website, announce it through the website feed and let the release feed handle the smaller versions. That way, social channels get a mix of full stories and short notices, and your site collects the search traffic that a long article attracts. The approach to changelogs on a documentation site is shown in the Docusaurus guide to blog and changelog feeds.

Release feeds for several repositories

Projects that consist of many repositories, such as a core library, plugins and documentation, create a stream of releases. Connecting every feed to the same channel can bury important news under minor updates. Group them: send the core library and the main application to the public channels, send plugins to a community channel, and keep tools and internal packages to a team chat. In PostRSS, each feed can have its own targets, filters and posting hours, so you can set this up without scripts. The general idea of routing by topic is covered in category filtering for auto-posting.

Timing and caching

A release feed is generated by GitHub on request and is cached for a short time, so a new release may take a little while to appear. In practice the delay is small, and an auto-poster that checks the feed regularly will see the release soon after you publish it. Do not expect it to be instant to the second. If you must coordinate an announcement with a blog post or a package upload, publish the release only after those are ready, because the feed announces whatever is public. Posting windows can also help: if you release late in the evening, you can ask the auto-poster to publish during the hours when your audience is online. For the general mechanics, see why auto-posted content sometimes lags.

Check the feed before you rely on it

Work through a short list of checks before you connect the address:

• The address returns a 200 status and the file starts with an XML declaration and a feed element.
• The newest release is at the top and its title is clear when read on its own.
• The first lines of the notes make sense as a summary.
• Pre-releases behave the way your policy expects, or are filtered.
• Paste the address into the W3C Feed Validation Service if an auto-poster reports an error.

There is a longer routine in the feed validation guide and a short one in debugging a feed with curl.

Write for people who do not read code

Followers on social networks are a mixed group. Some are developers who want the technical detail, but many are users, writers, managers and curious readers who only want to know whether a release matters to them. Keep the first lines of the notes free of acronyms and internal names, and say what a person can now do that they could not before. Put the breaking changes near the top, in plain words, with a link to the upgrade guide, because an unpleasant surprise is the quickest way to lose trust. Technical detail can follow below the summary, where the people who need it will find it when they open the release page.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Announcing every release candidate. Followers learn to ignore the account.
• Notes that start with a long list. The post shows internal details and not the point of the release.
• Using the commits feed for announcements. It posts every change, in technical language.
• Private repositories. The feed needs a login that an auto-poster cannot provide.
• Deleting and recreating a release. The entry may appear as a new item and be shared again.
• Renaming the repository. The feed address changes, and the old one may stop working.

How PostRSS works with a GitHub releases feed

PostRSS has been publishing RSS and Atom feeds to social networks since 2014. Paste the releases address of your repository, connect your accounts and choose how each post is built from the title, the summary or the page title. PostRSS checks the feed as often as every minute and shares each new entry, with its link, to the channels you choose among 66 supported networks, messengers, team chats and blogs, including Bluesky, Mastodon, Discord, Telegram and LinkedIn. Keyword filters let you skip pre-releases, and UTM parameters and posting windows let you tune each channel. See the PostRSS features page and the plan limits on the pricing page. More developer guides are under the Technical Guide tag.

Related reading

• RSS feed to Slack and Discord: automating team notifications
• How to auto-post an RSS feed to a Discord server via webhook
• How to auto-post product launch announcements from an RSS feed

The bottom line

GitHub already gives every public repository an Atom feed of its releases, so announcing versions can be automatic. Write clear release titles and summaries, decide how to treat pre-releases and patch versions, send stable releases to public channels and everything to a developer channel, filter by keyword where needed and check the feed with curl and a validator. Keep releases and repository names stable, write a full article for major versions and connect the feed to an auto-poster. After that, every release you publish reaches your followers without anyone writing a post.

FAQ

What is the address of a GitHub releases feed?

For a public repository it is github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases.atom, with your own owner and repository names. It lists published releases, newest first.

Does the releases feed include pre-releases?

It can, depending on how the release is published. Check your own feed, and use a keyword filter on titles if you want to announce only stable versions.

Can I use the feed of a private repository?

Not with an auto-poster, because the feed requires authentication. Publish release notes on a public page or on your own website and use that feed instead.

Is the Atom format a problem for auto-posting?

No. Modern auto-posters read Atom as well as RSS. PostRSS accepts both, so you can paste the address as it is.

Can PostRSS announce releases on Discord and Mastodon?

Yes. Connect the releases feed once and choose the channels, such as a Discord server and a Mastodon account, and each new release is shared there automatically.