releasealso

Releasealso is a term used in software release management to describe the practice of releasing multiple accompanying artifacts in the same release cycle alongside a primary product. The term emphasizes that the core application and its related components are treated as a coordinated bundle rather than as independent releases.

The phrase is informal and not part of a formal standard; it is used by teams to communicate release coordination. It commonly applies to multi-artifact releases in monorepos or product families, including platform-specific builds, localization packs, documentation, and client libraries.

In practice, releasealso involves inventorying all artifacts, agreeing on a shared versioning scheme, building and validating each item, and coordinating simultaneous deployment to reduce consumer drift. Release notes are aligned across artifacts, and deployment orchestration is used to ensure a synchronized rollout. Automated checks and dependency management are often essential to minimize cross-artifact incompatibilities.

Benefits of releasealso include greater consistency across components, improved user experience, and simplified downstream integration for customers. Challenges include increased coordination overhead, longer release windows, more complex rollback procedures, and the risk of cascading failures if one artifact misbehaves.

Examples of releasealso use include releasing a desktop application together with API client libraries and localization packs; publishing firmware alongside companion tooling; or launching a web application with its mobile app and offline documentation in a synchronized cycle.

See also: multi-artifact release, synchronized release, release train, continuous delivery.