GitHub Action for Creating a Release on Tag push

Creates a new GitHub release whenever a tag is pushed.

Example Usage

The following basic workflow will create a release whenever any tag is pushed that matches the version_regex.

name: Release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+"

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Create GitHub release
        uses: Roang-zero1/github-create-release-action@v3
        with:
          version_regex: ^v[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Limiting versions and creating pre-releases

If only certain tags should create releases or some releases should be created as pre-release you can set regular expression to achieve this. These regular expression are evaluated with GNU grep, so these regular expressions need to be compatible with it. Regular expressions containing \ need them to be escaped with \\.

• version_regex Regular expression to verify that the version is in a correct format. Defaults to .* (accept everything).
• prerelease_regex Any version matching this regular expression will be marked as pre-release. Disabled by default.

- name: Create GitHub release
  uses: Roang-zero1/github-create-release-action@v3
  with:
    version_regex: ^v[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+
    prerelease_regex: "^v2\\.[[:digit:]]+\\.[[:digit:]]+"
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Passing a tag to not rely on manual tag pushes

If you want to create a tag automatically and create the release in the same workflow you can set created_tag to achieve this. This allows you to create a fully automated release in one workflow file (workaround because one workflow/action can not trigger another workflow/action).
The example below uses K-Phoen/semver-release-action to create the tag whenever a pull request is closed, merged, and the head_ref starts with RC. After the tag is created it is passed to the create-release-action via the CREATED_TAG env variable using the output of the semver-release-action.

on:
  pull_request:
    types: closed

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event.pull_request.merged && startsWith(github.head_ref, 'RC')
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Tag and prepare release
        id: tag_and_prepare_release
        uses: K-Phoen/[email protected]
        with:
          release_branch: master
          release_strategy: tag
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      - name: Upload release notes
        if: steps.tag_and_prepare_release.outputs.tag
        uses: Roang-zero1/github-create-release-action@v3
        with:
          created_tag: ${{ steps.tag_and_prepare_release.outputs.tag }}
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Using the tag message as release body

If you have tag messages that you want to use as a release body you can pass them from the workflow with the release_text parameter.

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Refresh tags"
  id: tag
  run: git fetch --tags --force # Is currently required for v3 due to https://github.com/actions/checkout/issues/290
- uses: ericcornelissen/git-tag-annotation-action@v3
  id: tag-data
- name: Create GitHub release
  uses: Roang-zero1/github-create-release-action@v3
  with:
    version_regex: ^v[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+\.[[:digit:]]+
    release_text: ${{ steps.tag-data.outputs.git-tag-annotation }}
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Change log parsing

This action makes it possible to extract the release description from a Markdown change log.

By default, the CHANGELOG.md file is searched for a ## (h2) heading matching the tag text.

If it is found the section is passed as body to the release API.

If for example we release the tag v1.0.0 with a CHANGELOG.md as follows:

# Changelog

## v1.0.0

Initial Release

Then the text Initial Release will be passed as body. Markdown restrictions for release bodies still apply.

Parsed change logs with will have the new lines (/r, /n) and percent symbols (%) escaped.

Inputs

version_regex

Regular expression to verify that the version is in a correct format. Defaults to .* (accept everything).

prerelease_regex

Any version matching this regular expression will be marked as pre-release. Disabled by default.

create_draft

Create the releases as draft (true|false [default: false]). Existing will not be updated from released to draft.

update_existing

Controls whether an existing release should be updated with data from the latest push (true|false [default: false]).

created_tag

Allows to pass an already created tag.

release_title

Allows to pass a release title.

changelog_file

File that contains the Markdown formatted change log. Defaults to CHANGELOG.md.

changelog_heading

Heading level at which the tag headings exist. Defaults to h2, this parses headings at the markdown level ##.

Outputs

id

ID number of the created or updated release.

html_url

HTML access URL for the created or updated release.

upload_url

Artifact upload URL for the created or updated release.

changelog

Text of the parsed change log entry.

Secrets

• GITHUB_TOKEN Provided by GitHub action, does not need to be set.