Publish releases from the CLI or CI

A release is a version of your product that buyers download from SunLicense, with their license (and a mark naming them) written into the file. Besides the dashboard's Downloads tab, you can publish releases from the command line, from your CI workflow, or from an AI assistant over MCP. Product downloads are on the Standard plan.

From the command line

sunlicense releases create build/libs/acme-1.4.0.jar --product acme-editor --version 1.4.0 --notes @CHANGELOG.md

It creates release 1.4.0, uploads the file straight to SunLicense storage, waits for SunLicense to check it and publishes it: buyers can download it from their download links and the customer portal at once. For each file it says whether every download carries the buyer's key and mark (see Download watermark).

Flag	What it does
--product <code|name|id>	The product
--version <version>	The release's version, like 1.4.0 or 2.0.0-beta.1 (required)
--notes <text|@file>	Release notes in Markdown, or @file to read them from a file
--title <text>	A short title buyers see
--draft	Upload without publishing: buyers don't see it until you publish it under Downloads
--obfuscate	Obfuscate the files on SunLicense before they go live (Lite and Standard, uses obfuscation runs)
--wait <duration>	How long to wait for the file check (default 5m, 15m with --obfuscate)
--json	Print the result as JSON

Several files (one per platform, a jar and a resource pack): pass them all to the one command. A draft of the same version gets the files instead of a new release, so you can create the draft in the dashboard or with an assistant and upload from CI; a file that is already in the draft with the same content isn't uploaded again. A published version is refused: give each build its own version.

sunlicense releases list acme-editor                                     # versions, status, files, storage used
sunlicense releases delete --product acme-editor --version 1.4.0-setup   # a draft only

Published releases are deleted or unpublished under Downloads, since buyers may be downloading them.

The CLI checks your plan before uploading: no product downloads in the plan, a file over the plan's file size, or not enough storage left stops it with the reason and how to upgrade.

In CI

Run releases create only where real releases are made: a workflow for version tags, or your release task. Never in the everyday build or in pull requests, since each run publishes a version buyers can download. The CLI signs in with a personal access token in the SUNLICENSE_TOKEN secret.

# .github/workflows/release.yml
on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"]
jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./gradlew build
      - run: curl -fsSL https://sunlicense.com/install.sh | sh
      - run: sunlicense releases create build/libs/acme-${GITHUB_REF_NAME#v}.jar --product acme-editor --version ${GITHUB_REF_NAME#v} --notes @CHANGELOG.md
        env:
          SUNLICENSE_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SUNLICENSE_TOKEN }}

Obfuscating too? Run sunlicense obfuscate first and upload its output, or pass --obfuscate.

With an AI assistant (MCP)

• list_releases: a product's releases, their files and whether each carries the watermark.
• create_release in sunlicense mcp (the CLI's local server) takes the paths of your built files, reads them from disk and uploads them straight to SunLicense (never through the model), then publishes the release. It's marked destructive, and assistants that support it ask you before publishing; with draft it only uploads.
• Connected apps (remote MCP) and SunLicense AI run on our side and can't read files from your computer. There, create_release creates a draft with the version and notes and returns the sunlicense releases create command that uploads your files into it and publishes it, plus a link to the Downloads tab to upload them by hand.

The setup prompt

The product's Setup tab has a Publish releases part, off by default. Switch it on and the setup prompt adds a release step to your project's release script or CI, after the build (and after obfuscation, when that part is on). The part ticks once SunLicense sees the product's first release.

Download watermark

The Download watermark part ticks as soon as you upload a release file (dashboard, CLI or API) that SunLicense can see writes each buyer's details in: a .jar, .zip, .mcpack, .mcaddon or .mrpack whose code or text files carry %%__SUNLICENSE_KEY__%% or %%__SUNLICENSE_DOWNLOAD__%% in a place SunLicense rewrites (see How the license gets into the file). It also ticks on the first download that wrote a buyer's license in. sunlicense releases list --json shows "watermark": true for such files.