Releases and Versioning

GitHub Agentic Workflows uses a two-layer versioning model: the CLI extension (gh aw) that you run locally or in CI, and the compiled .lock.yml files that run in GitHub Actions. Each layer has independent version tracking.

Release Cadence

gh-aw follows a weekly or bi-weekly minor release cadence, similar to VS Code’s release practices. Each release cycle:

A new minor version is published as a prerelease and floated for a few days.
On Monday, the last known-good prerelease is promoted to stable and latest is updated.
Immediately after promotion, the next minor prerelease is kicked off.

Patch releases are reserved for urgent fixes between cycles. Major releases are used only for significant breaking changes.

Release Channels

Two options are available when installing gh-aw:

Channel	Alias	Behavior
Latest (default)	`latest`	Always resolves to the most recent GitHub release
Pinned	`vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH`	A fixed release tag — use when you need exact reproducibility

Installing a channel

# Latest (default — no version flag needed)
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gh-aw/main/install-gh-aw.sh | bash

# Specific version
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gh-aw/main/install-gh-aw.sh | bash -s v0.64.5

Via the GitHub CLI extension manager:

gh extension install github/gh-aw          # latest (default)
gh extension install github/gh-aw@v0.64.5  # pinned version

Checking and updating your version

gh aw version                   # Show currently installed version

gh extension upgrade gh-aw      # Upgrade to the latest release
gh aw upgrade --pre-releases    # Also consider newer pre-releases
gh extension install github/gh-aw --force --pin v0.75.3-beta.1  # Install an exact pre-release tag

Pinning in GitHub Actions

Use the setup-cli action to install a specific version in CI:

- name: Install gh-aw