Immutable releases: "you can only edit the title and release notes" is inaccurate #45718

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

Managing releases in a repository, the note under "Editing a release".

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

The note reads:

If you have enabled immutable releases for your repository, you can only edit the title and release notes after a release is published.

prerelease and make_latest are editable too, so the allowlist is wrong. It also contradicts Immutable releases, which lists the enforced protections as exactly two: Git tags cannot be moved, and release assets cannot be modified or deleted.

Measured on a repository with immutable releases enabled, against a published prerelease carrying one asset:

Read literally, the note says a published prerelease can never be promoted to stable under immutable releases. That would rule out publishing a prerelease, verifying the published assets by downloading them the way a user does, and only then clearing the prerelease flag — a draft release is not public, so the download path a consumer uses cannot be exercised before publication. The note discourages a release process that immutability in fact supports.

Suggested wording, a denylist matching the concepts page:

If you have enabled immutable releases for your repository, you cannot add, replace, or delete assets, or move the tag, after a release is published. Other details can still be edited, including the title, the release notes, and whether the release is a prerelease or the latest release.

Additional information

To reproduce: enable immutability on a throwaway repository with gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/immutable-releases -X PUT, publish a prerelease with an asset, then attempt each action above.

Scope of the measurement: name, body, prerelease and make_latest were tested. I did not test tag_name, target_commitish, draft or discussion_category_name on an immutable release.