Release GitHub Actions

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This is a GitHub Actions that automates the release of GitHub Actions.
Once you create a new tag, this action will automatically

1. Run build
2. Create branch for release
3. Change tags to release branch
4. If there is release which has same tag name and has been published, re-publish it (Because if the tag is changed, the release will be in a draft state).

Table of Contents

Details

• Usage
• CLI Tool
• Screenshot
• Options
• Execute commands
  • Build
  • Delete files
• Action event details
  • Target events
  • condition
• Motivation
• Addition
  • Tags
• Author

generated with TOC Generator

Usage

e.g. .github/workflows/release.yml

#on:
#  push:
#    tags:
#      - "v*"

on: create

name: Release
jobs:
  release:
    name: Release GitHub Actions
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: technote-space/release-github-actions@v6

More details of target event

CLI Tool

Screenshot

Options

name	description	default	required	e.g.
BUILD_COMMAND	Build command More details of execute command			yarn build:all
CLEAN_TARGETS	Files or directories to clean before release (Comma separated) Absolute path and .. are not permitted to use. More details of execute command	.[!.]*,__tests__,docs,src,*.[jt]s,*.[mc][jt]s,*.json,*.lock,*.yml,*.yaml	true	.[!.]*,*.txt
PACKAGE_MANAGER	Package manager to use to install dependencies If there is yarn.lock or package-lock.json, the action automatically determines the package manager to use, but this option can be used to specify it explicitly. （npm or yarn）			yarn
COMMIT_MESSAGE	Commit message	feat: build for release	true	feat: release
COMMIT_NAME	Commit name	github-actions[bot]	true
COMMIT_EMAIL	Commit email	41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com	true
BRANCH_NAME	Branch name for GitHub Actions release	gh-actions	true	gh-actions/${MAJOR}/${MINOR}/${PATCH}
BUILD_COMMAND_TARGET	Command for search build command	prepare, build, production, prod, package, pack		compile
ALLOW_MULTIPLE_BUILD_COMMANDS	Whether to allow run multiple build commands.	true		false
CREATE_MAJOR_VERSION_TAG	Whether to create major version tag (e.g. v1) Detail of tags	true		false
CREATE_MINOR_VERSION_TAG	Whether to create minor version tag (e.g. v1.2) Detail of tags	true		false
CREATE_PATCH_VERSION_TAG	Whether to create patch version tag (e.g. v1.2.3) Detail of tags	true		false
FETCH_DEPTH	Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch history	3		5
TEST_TAG_PREFIX	Prefix for test tag			test/
CLEAN_TEST_TAG	Whether to clean test tag	false		true
ORIGINAL_TAG_PREFIX	Prefix to add when leaving the original tag			original/
DELETE_NODE_MODULES	Whether to delete node_modules	false		true
GITHUB_TOKEN	Access token	${{github.token}}	true	${{secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN}}

Execute commands

Build

• If package.json includes prepare, build, production, prod, package or pack in scripts, the commands are used for build. (You can change this with BUILD_COMMAND_TARGET)
• If command does not have install command like npm run install or yarn install, install commands are added.

so if BUILD_COMMAND is not provided and package.json has build script, the following commands are executed for build.

yarn install
yarn build
yarn install --production

If build and pack are included, the commands are:

yarn install
yarn build
yarn pack
yarn install --production

Delete files

To execute GitHub Actions, src files used for build, test files, test settings, etc. are not required.
And GitHub Actions is downloaded every time when it is used, so fewer files are better.

CLEAN_TARGETS option is used for this purpose.
default: .[!.]*,__tests__,docs,src,*.[jt]s,*.[mc][jt]s,*.json,*.lock,*.yml,*.yaml

rm -rdf .[!.]*
rm -rdf *.js
rm -rdf *.mjs
rm -rdf *.ts
rm -rdf *.cts
rm -rdf *.json
rm -rdf *.lock
rm -rdf *.yml
rm -rdf *.yaml
rm -rdf __tests__ docs src

(action.yml is not subject to deletion.)

Action event details

Target events

eventName: action	condition
push: *	condition
release: published	condition
create: *	condition

condition

• tags
  • semantic versioning tag (e.g. v1.2.3)
  • test tag (e.g. test/v1.2.3)

Motivation

Releasing GitHub Actions needs all build files and dependencies like node_modules, but are not usually committed.
So if you want to release GitHub Actions, you have to do following steps.

1. Develop locally on the branch for develop
2. Build for release
3. Commit all source code including dependencies like node_modules to branch for release
4. Add tags (consider major, minor and patch versions)
5. Push to GitHub
6. Publish release

It is very troublesome to do this steps for every release.

If you use this GitHub Actions, the steps to do are simpler.

1. Develop locally on the branch for develop
2. Publish release (Create tag)
3. Wait for the automated steps to finish
   1. Build for release
   2. Commit all source code including dependencies like node_modules to branch for release
   3. Add tags (consider major, minor and patch versions)
   4. Push to GitHub

Addition

Tags

Tag name format must be Semantic Versioning.
The following tags will be created.

• tag name
• major tag name (generated by tag name)
  • e.g. v1
• minor tag name (generated by tag name)
  • e.g. v1.2
• patch tag name (generated by tag name)
  • e.g. v1.2.3

Author

GitHub (Technote)
Blog