Cutting prerelease versions does not check if a tag already exists

[AlexPaven]

Cutting a new prerelease version using the --prerelease parameter with the same value can fail when tagging if the tag already exists; this can happen if two features are in prerelease at the same time and multiple versions of each are interleaved. I believe only the latest tag is checked (or maybe only the package.json version?)

Current behavior
Git tag is not checked prior to creating it

Expected behavior
Git tag existence should probably be checked and the version incremented if it already exists

Environment

• commit-and-tag-version version(s): 12.5
• Node/npm version: Node 22
• OS: Ubuntu (github actions)

Possible Solution
I have solved this in my github workflow by running a dry-run first, parsing the version number from the output, and grepping it in the output of git tag; if it already exists, increment the final component of the version and try again. Then use the first version that isn't already tagged with --release-as. Something similar can probably be done internally?

Additional context
Roughly the following commands have been executed:

commit-and-tag-version -a --prerelease xyz
commit-and-tag-version -a --prerelease abc
commit-and-tag-version -a --prerelease xyz

Output of last command:
✔ bumping version in package.json from 1.4.3-abc.0 to 1.4.3-xyz.0
✔ bumping version in package-lock.json from 1.4.3-abc.0 to 1.4.3-xyz.0
✔ outputting changes to CHANGELOG.md
✔ committing package-lock.json and package.json and CHANGELOG.md and all staged files
✔ tagging release v1.4.3-xyz.0
fatal: tag 'v1.4.3-xyz.0' already exists

Command failed: git tag -a v1.4.3-xyz.0 -m chore(release): 1.4.3-xyz.0
fatal: tag 'v1.4.3-xyz.0' already exists

[jaakkotuosa]

I encountered this as well. The cause for this bug seems to be that latest-semver-tag.js takes literally the latest tag (abc) even if making different prerelease (xyz)

[TimothyJones]

Thanks for the report and the investigation! A fix for this would be welcome (and looks like #213 is an improvement too)