What's `--started` option in `sentry-cli releases finalize` for?

[phuctm97]

I'm using Sentry Releases & Deploys to manage my project's releases and deployments. I saw that the sentry-cli releases finalize command has 2 timestamp options: --started and --released.

The --released option is easy to understand are documented properly. However, the --started option is not documented and I'm not sure what it means, especially how is it different from the --released option and how they should be used together.

[szokeasaurusrex]

Hi @phuctm97, thanks for raising this issue.

The --started option is documented in sentry-cli releases finalize --help as follows:

      --started <TIMESTAMP>
          Set the release start date.

However, after testing it just now, the option does not seem to work as expected. I am going to investigate further and will let you know once I have more information.

[phuctm97]

Isn't --released (finalized) is the release start date already?

Hi @phuctm97, thanks for raising this issue.

The --started option is documented in sentry-cli releases finalize --help as follows:

      --started <TIMESTAMP>
          Set the release start date.

However, after testing it just now, the option does not seem to work as expected. I am going to investigate further and will let you know once I have more information.

[szokeasaurusrex]

Releases in Sentry have two timestamps associated with them: the "Created" date and the "Finalized" date. These are both displayed on the releases page, as displayed in the screenshot below.

By default, if you don't pass the timestamps, when you create a release in Sentry CLI with sentry-cli releases new, we populate the "Created" date with the current time, leaving the "Finalized" date empty to indicate that the release is not finalized yet. When you finalize the release with sentry-cli releases finalize, we populate the "Finalized" date to the current time.

The --released and --started flags allow you to override the timestamps; --released sets the "Finalized" timestamp, and I believe --started is supposed to set the "Created" timestamp. But, the --started timestamp seems to be broken (it does nothing), so I need to investigate what is wrong with it.

In most cases, you should not need to provide either argument.

[phuctm97]

I think an easy fix for this is to just remove the --started option. I believe it's different from the created timestamp, which should be when the release is created. The --released made sense but the --started is redundant.