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title: About releases intro: 'You can create a release to package software, along with release notes and links to binary files, for other people to use.' redirect_from:
- /articles/downloading-files-from-the-command-line
- /articles/downloading-files-with-curl
- /articles/about-releases
- /articles/getting-the-download-count-for-your-releases
- /github/administering-a-repository/getting-the-download-count-for-your-releases
- /github/administering-a-repository/about-releases
- /github/administering-a-repository/releasing-projects-on-github/about-releases versions: fpt: '' ghes: '' ghec: '*' topics:
- Repositories
Releases are deployable software iterations you can package and make available for a wider audience to download and use.
Releases are based on Git tags, which mark a specific point in your repository's history. A tag date may be different than a release date since the releases may be created much later.
You can receive notifications when new releases are published in a repository without receiving notifications about other updates to the repository. For more information, see Managing notifications.
Anyone with read access to a repository can view and compare releases, but only people with write permissions to a repository can manage releases. For more information, see Managing releases.
You can manually create release notes while managing a release. Alternatively, you can automatically generate release notes from a default template, or customize your own release notes template. For more details, see Release notes configuration.
When viewing the details for a release, the creation date for each release asset is shown next to the release asset.
GitHub will automatically include links to download a zip file and a tarball containing the contents of the repository at the point of the tag's creation.
{% ifversion fpt or ghec %} People with admin permissions to a repository can choose whether {% data variables.large_files.product_name_long %} ({% data variables.large_files.product_name_short %}) objects are included in the ZIP or tarball downloads. For more information, see Managing files in releases.
If a release fixes a security vulnerability, you should publish a security advisory in your repository. {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %} reviews each published security advisory and may use this information to notify affected users. For more guidance, see Publishing a security advisory.
You can view the Dependents tab of the dependency graph to see which repositories and packages depend on code in your repository, and may therefore be affected by a new release. For more information, see Viewing dependencies.
{% endif %}
You can also use the Releases API to gather information, such as the number of times people download a release asset. For more information, see Releases API.
{% ifversion fpt or ghec %}
Each file included in a release must be under {% data variables.large_files.max_file_size %}. There is no limit on the total size of a release, nor bandwidth usage.
{% endif %}