Configuration

In this setup, standard-version is responsible only for managing tags. Neither package.json nor CHANGELOG.md are used in order to avoid merge conflicts.

Example Scenario / Description of problem

1. I commit a feature and tag it as an alpha release (v1.1.0-alpha.0).

2. I find an issue with the alpha and fix it, tagging a new version (v1.1.0-alpha.1).

3. This version is more stable so I upgrade it to a beta version (v1.1.0-beta.0)

   I now have a git log that looks like this:

   * 21b6793 (HEAD -> master, tag: v1.1.0-beta.0, tag: v1.1.0-alpha.1) fix: Some fix
   * 3cb3d59 (tag: v1.1.0-alpha.0) feat: Some feature
   * 776f5c6 (tag: v1.0.0) chore: Initial commit
   

4. Now I want to commit some more changes and tag it as an alpha again, but standard-version gives the following error:

   > npx standard-version --prerelease=alpha
   
   ✔ tagging release v1.1.0-alpha.0
   fatal: tag 'v1.1.0-alpha.0' already exists
   
   Command failed: git tag -a v1.1.0-alpha.0 -m chore(release): 1.1.0-alpha.0
   fatal: tag 'v1.1.0-alpha.0' already exists

   Even though there are already two alphas with the same version in the history, they are occluded by the beta tag:

   v1.1.0-beta.0
   v1.1.0-alpha.1
   v1.1.0-alpha.0
   v1.0.0
   

   Thus, standard version reset to alpha.0 again which clashes with the existing tag.

Possible solution

When doing a prerelease, standard-version should continue searching beyond the first tag in the sorted list for any tags that match the highest version plus the supplied preid:

1. Check highest tag

   a) If tag does not have a preid (e.g. v1.1.0, use current behavior to get recommended bump, e.g. v1.1.1-alpha.0)

   b) If tag has a preid, e.g. v1.1.0-beta.0, parse latest version v1.1.0 and combine with supplied preid alpha to search for tags beginning with v1.1.0-alpha.

2. Iterate over each tag in the history until one of two conditions is met:

   a) tag starts with v1.1.0-alpha., use as latest version. For the alpha scenario, we'd stop at v1.1.0-alpha.1 and know the next version should be v1.1.0-alpha.2

   b) tag version is less than the search criterion, stop. In this case, if there were no alpha tags, we'd stop at v1.0.0 since it's less than v1.1.0 and the next version would be v1.1.0-alpha.0