Nightlies

Automated rolling nightly releases

Nightly mode creates date-based versions and replaces a rolling nightly release on GitHub.

Classification

Not applicable — this is a workflow page, not a publisher. Nightly mode is a release-time flag that changes the version string and tag policy; the publishers that fire are the same ones configured for normal releases.

Minimal config

anodizer release --nightly

No YAML changes required for the default behavior.

Full config reference

nightly:
  name_template: "{{ ProjectName }}-nightly"  # optional; release-name template
  tag_name: nightly                            # optional; the rolling tag to replace each night
  publish_release: true       # default true — create a GitHub Release for each nightly run
  keep_single_release: false  # default false — set true to delete prior release before recreating
  draft: false                # optional — override release.draft for nightly runs only

Field	Type	Default	Description
`nightly.publish_release`	`bool`	`true`	Whether to create a GitHub Release at all.
`nightly.keep_single_release`	`bool`	`false`	Delete the prior nightly release before creating a new one, keeping only the latest.
`nightly.draft`	`bool`	(inherits `release.draft`)	Override the draft flag for nightly runs only.

Publisher skip behavior

Most package-manager publishers skip on nightly runs to avoid polluting stable indexes. The following skip automatically: homebrew, homebrew_casks, scoop, aur, aur_source, krew, nix, cargo, npm, chocolatey, winget.

Docker and private registry publishers (dockerhub, dockers_v2, cloudsmith, artifactory, blob, mcp) do not skip — they accept clobber by design.

To override, set skips_on_nightly: false in the publisher block.

Authentication

Not applicable as a separate config — nightly publishes use the same release credentials (GITHUB_TOKEN) and per-publisher tokens as a normal release.

Common gotchas

Distinct from --snapshot — nightlies are published, snapshots are not.
The nightly tag is force-pushed every run; existing release assets are replaced (set release.replace_existing_artifacts: true to clear before re-upload).
Date format defaults to YYYYMMDD; override via name_template if you need higher resolution.

Behavior

Version becomes 0.1.0-nightly.20260327 (date-stamped)
Creates/replaces a nightly tag and release on GitHub
Distinct from --snapshot — nightlies are published, snapshots are not