Releases

Releases turn the work completed in a project into a dated, customer-facing update. Each release can bring together project tasks, explain the outcome in plain language, and publish the result alongside the project’s public roadmap.

A release is a publishing record, not another task workflow. Adding a task to a release does not complete, archive, or otherwise change that task, and a task does not need to be complete before you include it.

Open the Releases panel

Open a project and select Releases from the project tools on the right. The panel lists the project’s drafts and published releases, their publication dates, and the number of tasks in each one.

Select an existing release to edit it, or use New release to start one. Releases belong to the current project: the task picker only searches that project, and a release cannot include tasks from somewhere else in the workspace.

Releases are for project members. Guest collaborators do not see the Releases panel and cannot create, edit, or publish a release. They can still read published releases on the project’s shared page, like any other visitor.

Create a release

The release editor has two parts. The left side describes the release as a whole; the right side builds its public list of changes.

1. Add a title. A release cannot be saved without one.
2. Write a summary that explains what changed and why it matters.
3. Choose a publication date, or leave it empty and let Lane use the day you publish.
4. Optionally add a JPEG or PNG cover image.
5. Select Add task and choose the project tasks included in the release.
6. Review the public wording, reorder the items, and select Preview before publishing.

You can include up to 100 tasks in one release. The same task can appear only once within that release, but it can be used again in a later release when that accurately reflects the update. Every selected task must also have non-empty public wording; remove unfinished items from the release or give them wording before saving.

Field limits: the title is capped at 200 characters, the summary at 10,000, and each item’s public wording at 1,000. A release that exceeds any of these is rejected when you try to save it.

Write public release notes

When you add a task, Lane copies its title into a separate public wording field. Edit that wording freely: changing it does not rename the underlying task. This is useful when an internal title such as “Fix pricing card wrapping at tablet width” should become “Improved the pricing page on smaller screens.”

Drag release items into the order readers should encounter them. A useful release usually leads with the most meaningful outcome, uses the summary for context, and leaves the task list to explain the individual changes.

Use Preview to check the cover, date, title, summary, and task wording together. The preview matches the structure used by the public Changelog view.

Draft, publish, and unpublish

Use Save draft while the release is still being assembled. Drafts remain visible to project members in the Releases panel but never appear on the public shared page.

Select Publish when the update is ready. If no publication date is set, Lane adds the current date. The date is descriptive rather than a publishing schedule: setting a future date does not delay publication.

Published releases can still be edited. Update release saves the latest wording and media, while Unpublish returns the release to draft and removes it from the public Changelog view. Deleting a release is permanent, but it does not delete or alter any of its tasks.

Deleting a task does change its releases. The task’s release item is removed with it, including from a release that has already been published — and, if requesters were notified, already emailed. The public release notes simply lose that line. Archive the task instead of deleting it when it appears in a published release; archived tasks keep their release items intact.

Publish releases on a shared page

Enable the project’s shared page to make its published releases publicly accessible. Visitors do not need a Lane account. They can switch between the project’s Roadmap and Changelog views, browse the release feed, and read its public task wording. Drafts, internal task titles, and the rest of the project remain private.

Published releases appear newest first in a chronological feed. Each entry can show its publication date, title, cover image, summary, and ordered public release items. Longer histories load progressively as a visitor scrolls.

Disabling the shared page removes public access to both the Roadmap and Changelog views. Publishing a release does not enable the shared page automatically.

Notify the customers who asked

If a release includes tasks with customer requests, enable Notify requesters before publishing to email the attached contacts. Lane deduplicates recipients by email address, so one person receives one update even when several of their requests are represented in the release.

The notification uses the release title and summary. When the project’s shared page is enabled, it also links directly to the Changelog view. When public sharing is disabled, Lane sends the update without a public URL.

The toggle applies only to the current publish or update action and is off whenever you reopen the editor. Leave it off when updating an already published release unless you intend to email the requesters again. Saving a draft or unpublishing never sends an email.

A practical release workflow

For a clean, repeatable publishing pass:

1. Finish or identify the project tasks that belong to the update.
2. Create a draft release and add those tasks.
3. Rewrite internal titles as concise customer-facing outcomes.
4. Add a summary and optional cover image.
5. Preview the release and check the item order.
6. Publish it, optionally notifying the customers connected to the included work.

This keeps the full path visible: the original customer signal stays attached to the task, the task becomes delivered work, the release explains what shipped, and the requester can be brought back into the loop.