GitHub Releases

Versioned-binary storage — unlimited releases, 2 GB/asset, free

GitHub Releases

Role

Versioned binary storage for the family. Used to publish:

• Browser extension bundles (.crx, .xpi, .zip)
• VS Code extension VSIX (.vsix)
• CLI binaries (one per OS × arch)
• Any other artifact whose identity is (repo, tag, asset-name)

Pairs with Backblaze B2 — Releases for versioned binaries, B2 for everything else. Documented in decisions/architecture/object-storage-split.md.

Free tier

• Unlimited releases per public repo
• 2 GB per asset
• No transfer charge for downloads
• Versioned by git tag — every asset is immutable per (tag, name)
• Server-side checksums via gh api / Releases API

Card / subscription required?

NO. GitHub Free covers public repos with unlimited Releases.

Alternatives

• Backblaze B2 — sibling, used for unversioned blobs
• npm tarballs (used for @chirag127/* packages — not for binaries)
• direct repo commits (rejected — bloats clone size)

Swap cost

Low — gh release upload is one shell line; download is gh release download or a stable URL. Replacing means choosing another binary host (Cloudflare R2 was rejected on card grounds; B2 is the fallback).

Why this is our pick

Git tag = release version. The asset URL is stable, immutable, and cacheable; the GitHub CDN handles delivery; the family already lives on GitHub. Build pipelines can upload via softprops/action-gh-release inside the per-repo CI from decisions/process/code-quality-stack.md.

Cross-refs

• Object storage split decision
• Backblaze B2 — sibling, unversioned blobs
• Extensions cross-store publish

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