diff --git a/RELEASING.md b/RELEASING.md
index 124d741b5..b22455b35 100644
--- a/RELEASING.md
+++ b/RELEASING.md
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+There is a script `release.sh` which does the following, but if you need to do
+a release manually, here are the steps:
+
 - `git checkout -b release-v0.x.x`
 - Update `CHANGELOG.md`
 - `npm version 0.x.x`
diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..577bf92be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Script to perform a release of matrix-js-sdk. Performs the steps documented
+# in RELEASING.md
+#
+# Requires githib-changelog-generator; to install, do 
+#   pip install git+https://github.com/matrix-org/github-changelog-generator.git
+
+set -e
+
+if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
+    echo 2>&1 "Usage: $0 vX.Y.Z"
+    exit 1
+fi
+
+tag=$1
+
+case "$tag" in
+    v*) ;;
+    
+    *)
+        echo 2>&1 "Tag $tag must start with v"
+        exit 1
+        ;;
+esac
+
+# strip leading 'v' to get release
+release="${tag#v}"
+rel_branch="release-$tag"
+
+cd `dirname $0`
+
+echo "Creating release branch"
+git checkout -b "$rel_branch"
+
+echo "Generating changelog"
+update_changelog "$release"
+read -p "Edit CHANGELOG.md manually, or press enter to continue"
+
+echo "Committing updated changelog"
+git commit "CHANGELOG.md" -m "Prepare changelog for $tag"
+
+# Bump package.json, build the dist, and tag
+echo "npm version"
+npm version "$release"
+
+# generate the docs
+echo "generating jsdocs"
+npm run gendoc
+
+echo "copying jsdocs to gh-pages branch"
+git checkout gh-pages
+git pull
+cp -ar ".jsdoc/matrix-js-sdk/$release" .
+perl -i -pe 'BEGIN {$rel=shift} $_ =~ /^<\/ul>/ && print 
+   "<li><a href=\"${rel}/index.html\">Version ${rel}</a></li>\n"' \
+       $release index.html
+git add "$release"
+git commit --no-verify -m "Add jsdoc for $release" index.html "$release"
+
+# merge release branch to master
+echo "updating master branch"
+git checkout master
+git pull
+git merge --ff-only "$rel_branch"
+
+# push everything to github
+git push origin master "$rel_branch" "$tag" "gh-pages"
+
+# publish to npmjs
+npm publish