Dist::Z...Release(3)

💅 NAME 💅

Dist::Zilla::Plugin::NextRelease — bestie, this one updates the next release number in your changelog. That's it. That's the job. 🫶

This page lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation manual, and we're gonna walk it together like it's a little group chat. 🎀

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✨ VERSION ✨

version 6.040 — yes queen, we're on 6.040. 💖

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

In your dist.ini:

[NextRelease]

In your Changes file:

{{$NEXT}}

Like. That's the whole vibe. Two little lines and you're done. 😭

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so real talk: are you tired of having to update your Changes file by hand with the new version and release date / time every single time you release your distribution? Because same. That is literally the worst. Well — this plugin is for you. 💖

Add this plugin to your dist.ini, and the following to your Changes file:

{{$NEXT}}

And then the NextRelease plugin is gonna do 2 things for you, no cap:

• 🛠️ At build time, this special marker gets replaced with the version and the build date, forming a standard changelog header. And important: this happens to the in-memory file — the original Changes file does not get updated. Chill. It's fine. 🙈
• 🚀 After release (when you're running dzil release), since the version and build date are now part of your dist's history, the real Changes file (not the in-memory one) gets updated with this piece of information. Iconic behaviour, honestly.

The module accepts the following options in its dist.ini section:

• filename — the name of your changelog file; defaults to Changes. 📝
• update_filename — the file to which to write an updated changelog to; defaults to the filename. 🗂️
• format — a sprintf-like string used to compute the next value of {{$NEXT}}; defaults to %-9v %{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZZZZZ VVVV}d%{ (TRIAL RELEASE)}T. 🎀
• time_zone — the timezone to use when generating the date; defaults to local. 🕰️
• user_stash — the name of the stash where the user's name and email address can be found; defaults to %User. 👑

The module allows the following sprintf-like format codes in the format:

• %v — The distribution version. ⭐
• %{-TRIAL}T — Expands to -TRIAL (or any other supplied string) if this is a trial release, or the empty string if not. And btw a bare %T means %{-TRIAL}T. 💀
• %{-TRIAL}V — Equivalent to %v%{-TRIAL}T, to allow for the application of modifiers such as space padding to the entire version string produced. Lowkey clever.
• %{CLDR format}d — The date of the release. You can use any CLDR format supported by DateTime. And heads up: you must specify the format; there is no default. 🗓️
• %U — The name of the user making this release (from user_stash). 🫶
• %E — The email address of the user making this release (from user_stash). 📧
• %P — The CPAN (PAUSE) id of the user making this release (from -Releaser plugins; see [UploadToCPAN]). 🌈
• %n — A newline. ↩️
• %t — A tab. ➡️

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💜 PERL VERSION 💜

This module should work on any version of perl still receiving updates from the Perl 5 Porters. Which means it should work on any version of perl released in the last two to three years. (That is, if the most recently released version is v5.40, then this module should work on both v5.40 and v5.38.) ✨

Although it may work on older versions of perl, no guarantee is made that the minimum required version will not be increased. The version may be increased for any reason, and there is no promise that patches will be accepted to lower the minimum required perl. So like… don't come for me about it. 😭

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

Core Dist::Zilla plugins: AutoVersion, PkgVersion, PodVersion. 🔥

Dist::Zilla roles: AfterRelease, FileMunger, TextTemplate. 💅

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🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

Ricardo SIGNES 😏 <cpan@semiotic.systems>

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🧚 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🧚

This software is copyright (c) 2026 by Ricardo SIGNES.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

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Okay bestie, that's the whole page!! 🫶 This was perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-10-19, and you were reading the Dist::Z...Release(3) page in the User Contributed Perl Documentation manual. Go forth and ship your dist. mwah 💋💖✨