This module manages the fetching, processing, and rendering of GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) release notes. These notes are displayed on dedicated pages (e.g., /en/enterprise-server@3.19/admin/release-notes) and list the features, bug fixes, and known issues for each patch release.

The primary goal is to:

• Parse Release Data: Read structured YAML data containing release notes.
• Format & Sort: Organize notes by version (major.minor) and patch level.
• Render Content: Process Markdown and Liquid within the notes.
• Contextualize: Inject the processed notes into the page context for rendering by React components.

Release notes are stored in the data/release-notes/enterprise-server directory.

• Origin: The content is sourced externally and synced to this repository.
• Format: YAML files organized by version.
• Structure: Each file contains entries for patch releases, including sections for "Features", "Bugs", "Security", etc.

The core logic resides in src/release-notes/middleware/ghes-release-notes.ts.

• Route Detection: It activates only for GHES release notes pages or the Admin landing page.
• Data Retrieval: Fetches raw data using getReleaseNotes.
• Forced English: Currently, it forces the content language to English (en) during rendering. This is a workaround because the source Markdown often lacks Liquid variables for product names, leading to undesirable translations of proper nouns (e.g., "GitHub Copilot" becoming translated literally).
• Rendering: Uses renderPatchNotes to process the Markdown/Liquid content of each note.

src/release-notes/lib/release-notes-utils.ts provides helper functions:

• formatReleases: Sorts releases and patches semantically (using semver). It transforms the raw data into a structured array suitable for the UI.
• renderPatchNotes: Iterates through sections (features, bugs, etc.) and renders the content strings.

The frontend rendering is handled by React components in src/release-notes/components:

• GHESReleaseNotes.tsx: The main container.
• PatchNotes.tsx: Renders the details of a specific patch.

Release notes are received from an external source. Do not manually create or edit release note files in this repository unless specifically instructed to do so by the release process or for testing purposes.

The files in data/release-notes are the destination for this external data.

• Page: /en/enterprise-server@<version>/admin/release-notes
• Anchor: #3.19.1 (Links to specific patch notes)

• semver: Used for sorting and comparing version strings.
• src/versions: Used to determine supported GHES versions (latestStable, all).
• src/content-render: Used to render the Markdown content within the notes.

• Team: @github/docs-engineering
• Content Owners: The Writers and Release Managers responsible for the GHES release process.

• Translation Workaround: As mentioned, we currently force English rendering for release notes to avoid "over-translation" of product names. This is a known limitation until the source data is updated to use proper Liquid variables.
• Legacy Redirects: The middleware handles redirects for very old versions (pre-2.20) to enterprise.github.com.