How LinearB Detects Releases for DORA Metrics

• LinearB counts a release based on your configured tag-based or merge-based strategy.
• Releases are attributed to contributors who committed to the released branch or PR.
• At the team level, a release counts once per team even if multiple members contributed.

A branch or pull request (PR) is considered released if it meets the criteria defined in your configured release detection strategy:

• Tag-based strategy: Branches in the repository associated with the same tag are considered part of the release defined by that tag.
• Merge-based strategy: Each branch merged into the main branch is considered a release.

Contributor-level attribution

Releases are attributed to the contributors of the branch involved in the release:

• If a contributor commits to a branch that is later released, they are credited for the release.
• If multiple contributors commit to the same branch, the release is counted for all contributors.

Examples

• Tag-based strategy: If a contributor works on 4 different branches in the same repository and all are tagged with the same release tag, they are credited with 1 release.
• Merge-based strategy: If a contributor contributes to 3 branches that are eventually merged into the main branch, they are credited with 3 releases.

Team-level release attribution

A release is attributed to a team if any of its members contributed to the release. However:

• If a release is attributed to multiple contributors within the same team, it is counted as 1 release for the team.
• If a contributor belongs to more than one team, the release is counted for all teams they are part of.

This approach ensures accurate tracking of releases at both the individual and team levels while avoiding duplicate counts for the same release.