In Amplitude, a release represents a change in your product. Releases include major updates like the launch of a new feature, minor patches that fix small bugs, and experiment launches. Releases display as a marker in your time-series charts when they occur.

## Create a release

### Automated releases

If you're on a **Growth** or **Enterprise** plan, Amplitude continuously listens for a new value for the `Version` user property. When Amplitude detects a new value, it automatically creates a release the next day. It applies the following heuristics when creating a new release:

- A release must follow [semantic versioning format](https://semver.org/): `major.minor.patch` with `.patch` as optional. For example, `Version = 12345` doesn't automatically create a release, but `Version = 123.45.6` does.
- Amplitude excludes development projects (projects that contain names like "Test", "Development", "Staging," etc.) from automatic release generation.
- If you send event data server-side through Amplitude's HTTP/Batch API, use the `app_version` user property.

Automated releases aren't created retroactively for backfilled data.

#### Configure an automated release

You can configure automated release detection in the _Release Timeline_ if you're an admin or manager. Click the settings icon to open the _Project Settings_ flyout panel. From there, you can enable or disable automatic release detection and automatic annotation.

### Manual releases

If your product doesn't use semantic versioning, or you're on the **Plus** plan, you can manually create a release from the [release timeline](#the-release-timeline-view) frame, or from the Microscope in a chart.

To create a manual release, click _Create Release_ and fill in the modal that appears.

- **Release name**: The name of the release. This is visible on charts and in the _Release Timeline_.
- **Version**: The `Version` user property that defines the product change. Amplitude uses this field to show you any new events introduced in the release, in the [Release Report](#the-release-report). The Version field selected must be an existing value in your data.
- **Description**: The product change brought about in the release. This is visible in the release timeline view.
- **Release date**:The date the release shipped.
- **End date**: The end date of the release rollout.
- **Platforms**: The `Platform`(s) this release applies to.
- **Visibility**: Whether the release is visible on all charts or not.

### Releases API

Create releases programmatically with the [Releases API](https://developers.amplitude.com/docs/releases-api). This allows you to integrate the creation of releases into your own internal deployment processes.

## Edit a release

Edit manually created or automatically detected releases to add context and information. To edit a release, open the release from within the release timeline view and click _Edit_.

By default, all releases are visible across all charts. You can toggle the visibility of a release from the [release report](#the-release-report) page (this view), or the release timeline view.

## The release report

From the _Release Timeline_, click a release to view the release report. A release report is a collection of metadata and analysis generated by Amplitude.

In the _Metrics_ section, you can view the number of unique users exposed to your release and the percentage of your active user base that figure represents. The percentage of active users is the number of users that have seen the release version divided by the number of users on the platform specified in the release definition.

If the release includes new events, Amplitude shows them in the table to the right of _Metrics_. The _% Active_ metric shows the percentage of your active user base triggering the new events detected since the release date.

The _Adoption_ section shows a time series depicting adoption of your release since its launch date. Amplitude limits the time series to 30 days since the start of the release.

### Add items to a release

You can link to other Amplitude content in the _Analyses_ section. This makes it easy for others in your organization to understand how the experiences you've launched have performed, and the impact they've had on your users.

Use releases to distribute both context and outcomes across your team.

To attach items to a release, click _+ Add Item_ in the _Analyses_ section of the Release Report.

## The release timeline view

The _Release Timeline_ serves as a history of all product updates your team has shipped. The timeline includes releases Amplitude automatically created and releases your team manually added.

To access the _Release Timeline_, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to _Settings> Organization settings > Projects_.
2. Find the project you're interested in and click it.
3. Open the _Releases_ tab.

{% callout type="note" %}
The release timeline view only populates new versions in real time. When backfilling historical data, Amplitude doesn't consider these releases to be new, as they happened in the past. You must manually add any backfilled releases to the timeline.
{% /callout %}