[META] Change to use automatic releases

[hasezoey]

Considering publishing issues that had been encountered in recent versions, maybe we should make use of automated publishing. This would give us the benefit of:

• automatic CHANGELOG generation
• automatic git tagging
• automatic github release creation (with CHANGELOG text)
• less likelihood of publishing issues
• possibility to make use of Trusted Publishing
• easier version releases, allowing more versions more often

Specifically, i would propose to add git-cliff as the CHANGELOG generator, and later release-plz (blog post) as the automated release tool (which makes use of git-cliff). Specifically this would mean, in addition to the above:

• we would get a new PR each time a new version could be released (if a pr is already open, it will be updated)
• all maintainers with WRITE access could release a version
• makes use of trusted publishing

This of-course depends on #693 to use stricter commit messages and everyone making sensible commit descriptions.

[tramhao]

For me, there is only one concern, relying on third party tools too much, will lead to a broken state when some third party tool stop being maintained. What do you think@hasezoey? Thanks.

[hasezoey]

For me, there is only one concern, relying on third party tools too much, will lead to a broken state when some third party tool stop being maintained. What do you think@hasezoey? Thanks.

That is true, but from what i can tell, both mentioned tools are maintained by someone that is unlikely to give up too suddenly. For example git-cliff is maintained by orhun(maintains ratatui and some things in archlinux, including the termusic package btw) and release-plz is maintained by ieni(who is in the rust infrastructure team))

In case they somehow do stop getting maintained, it is not like it will suddenly stop working or it is not like there aren't alternatives (ex. semantic-release), but they are not tailored to rust.
In any case, we could still fall back to manual publishing and manual changelog generation. At least while they are maintained, it reduces some burden and potential publishing mistakes.

As for reliance, for example i make heavy use of semantic-release in my personal projects where possible, mainly in js/ts environments though. It has some plugins for rust, but they are somewhat stale and i didnt recommend semantic-release as they refuse to publish in the 0.x range, which rust crates make heavy use of (including us).