A practical guide to automating semantic versioning using semantic-release, GitLab CI, and the open source to-be-continuous project. Covers setting up a .gitlab-ci.yml with two CI components (gitlab-ci-semrel and gitlab-ci-helm), configuring .releaserc.yml with plugins for commit analysis, changelog generation, version file updates via yq, and GitLab release publishing. Also explains how to grant the necessary repository write permissions via GITLAB_TOKEN, and walks through the full workflow from branch creation to automated Helm chart packaging and OCI registry publishing triggered by Git tags.