goreleaser/docs/000-introduction.md

---
title: Introduction
---

[GoReleaser](https://github.com/goreleaser/goreleaser) is a release automation
tool for Go projects, the goal is to simplify the build, release and
publish steps while providing variant customization options for all steps.

GoReleaser is built for CI tools; you only need to
[download and execute it](#ci_integration) in your build script.
You can [customize](#customization) your release process by
creating a `.goreleaser.yml` file.

The idea started with a
[simple shell script](https://github.com/goreleaser/old-go-releaser),
but it quickly became more complex and I also wanted to publish binaries via
Homebrew taps, which would have made the script even more hacky, so I let go of
that and rewrote the whole thing in Go.

## Installing Goreleaser

There are three ways to get going.

1. Install Goreleaser via go get (`goreleaser` command will be globally available) `go get github.com/goreleaser/goreleaser`
2. On a Mac use [Homebrew](https://github.com/goreleaser/homebrew-tap).
3. Install directly [from the binaries](https://github.com/goreleaser/goreleaser/releases/latest).