Update release flow to be more robust

[j-piasecki]

Description

Overhaul of the release process:

• adds beta and rc options to the previously existing stable and commitly
• allows the release of a specific version, independent from the branch name (optional, will still detect the version from the branch name when unspecified)
• verifies that the latest version is either one patch, one minor, or one major higher than the currently published version (ATM throws on major change)
• verifies that beta, rc and commitly releases aren't done for an already published version (i.e. will disallow publishing 2.30.0-beta.1 when stable 2.30.0 is published`).
• automatic numbering of beta and rc releases

Internally:

• moved most of the helpers to separate files
• moved version numbering helpers to version-utils
• added tests covering the release scripts

Test plan

Tested on a fork:

• Fails when trying to skip minor on latest release: https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21475940199/job/61859862583
• Fails when trying to skip patch on latest release: https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21476045075/job/61860214823
• Fails when trying to publish on existing versions (checks base version for beta, rc, and commitly): https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21476741044/job/61862557674
• Succeeds when not skipping any minor: https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21476056662/job/61860252565
• Succeeds when not skipping any patch: https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21476183083/job/61860683061
• Succeeds when publishing a non-latest release: https://github.com/j-piasecki/react-native-gesture-handler/actions/runs/21476510871/job/61861782101

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Overhauls the npm release automation to support additional release channels (beta/rc), optional explicit version publishing, and stronger validation around what can be published and tagged.

Changes:

• Add release helpers for computing next stable/pre-release versions and validating latest vs non-latest publishes.
• Refactor release scripting by extracting argument parsing and version computation into dedicated modules.
• Add Jest-based unit tests for the release scripts and introduce a CI workflow to run them.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 17 out of 18 changed files in this pull request and generated 10 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
yarn.lock	Adds Jest dependency to lockfile for running new script tests.
package.json	Adds test script and Jest dev dependency for running release-script tests.
scripts/release/version-utils.js	Adds helpers to compute latest/next stable/pre-release versions using npm registry queries.
scripts/release/validate-non-latest-version.js	Adds validation to prevent publishing non-latest releases when the base version already exists.
scripts/release/validate-latest-version.js	Adds validation to ensure latest-tagged stable releases increment semver correctly.
scripts/release/should-be-latest.js	Expands logic for deciding whether a stable release should be tagged as latest.
scripts/release/set-package-version.js	Refactors to use shared argument parsing + version selection helpers.
scripts/release/parse-arguments.js	Introduces centralized CLI flag parsing for release scripts.
scripts/release/get-version.js	Implements version selection logic per release type (stable/beta/rc/commitly).
scripts/release/tests/version-utils.test.js	Adds unit tests for version parsing and next-version helpers.
scripts/release/tests/validate-non-latest-version.test.js	Adds unit tests for non-latest publish validation logic.
scripts/release/tests/validate-latest-version.test.js	Adds unit tests for latest publish validation logic.
scripts/release/tests/should-be-latest.test.js	Adds unit tests for npm-tag selection logic.
scripts/release/tests/parse-arguments.test.js	Adds unit tests for release CLI argument parsing.
scripts/release/tests/get-version.test.js	Adds unit tests for deriving versions for each release type.
.github/workflows/run-jest-tests.yml	Adds a CI workflow to run the new Jest tests.
.github/workflows/publish-release.yml	Extends publish workflow to support manual stable/beta/rc and automatic commitly releases.
.github/actions/publish-npm-package/action.yml	Updates composite action to accept release type/version, determine npm tag, and validate versions before publishing.

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[m-bert]

Overall looks good 😄