diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..c033766
--- /dev/null
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# actions requires a node_modules dir https://github.com/actions/toolkit/blob/master/docs/javascript-action.md#publish-a-releasesv1-action
+# but its recommended not to check these in https://github.com/actions/toolkit/blob/master/docs/action-versioning.md#recommendations
+# as such the following hack is how we dill with it
+
+if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
+	echo "please pass a release version. i.e. $0 v1"
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+git checkout -b releases/$1 # If this branch already exists, omit the -b flag
+rm -rf node_modules
+sed -i '/node_modules/d' .gitignore # Bash command that removes node_modules from .gitignore
+npm install --production
+git add node_modules .gitignore
+git commit -m node_modules
+git push origin releases/$1
\ No newline at end of file