Releasing software sounds simple in theory, but I quickly learned how many small decisions are involved in making an app usable by real people. For my Repo-Context-Packager project, I needed to choose a release method that would allow non-developers to install and run the tool with as little setup as possible. Since this is a C++ command-line program with no external dependencies, I initially experimented with Conan, a package manager for C++ projects. However, I ran into installation and PATH issues on Windows, and I realized that using a package registry was adding unnecessary complexity. Instead, I chose a more direct and user-friendly approach: distributing a prebuilt executable through GitHub Releases. This gave me a simple and reliable way to make the tool available to anyone with a Windows machine.
To support distribution, I first needed to ensure the project could be built in a reproducible way. I created a PowerShell script that compiles all the C++ source files into a single executable using g++ with fixed build options. I also updated the program's version output and introduced semantic versioning by tagging the release commit as v1.0.0. Once everything was stable, I generated the executable and a .zip file that included the binary along with documentation. With these artifacts ready, I published my GitHub Release and attached the files so users can download and run the tool without installing a compiler.
A big part of this lab was understanding how releases represent frozen snapshots of the code at a specific point in time. When I updated my README after publishing the release, the changes weren’t reflected in the release assets, and GitHub showed a message saying that the main branch was a few commits ahead of the release tag. Any improvements must lead to a new patch release rather than modifying the old one. I also realized that GitHub automatically provides source archives for every release, which initially confused me because I thought I had uploaded something incorrectly.
For user testing, I asked a partner to download and run only the release files—no cloning and no compiling allowed. They were initially unsure where to click to download the exe and how to run a command-line tool in Windows. Based on their feedback, I revised the README so that installation instructions appear at the very top, and I added simple PowerShell examples that anyone could copy and run. After those changes, the experience went smoothly: they were able to scan a folder using the command repo-context-packager.exe . -o context.txt and instantly generate a full snapshot of the repository.
Overall, completing this release taught me how much work goes into making software truly usable for others. I learned practical versioning, packaging, and documentation skills, along with the importance of testing installation instructions with someone unfamiliar with the project. Today, users can simply visit the GitHub Release page, download the prebuilt executable, and run it from a terminal to generate a formatted snapshot of any repository.
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