GitHub Automatic Releases

This action simplifies the GitHub release process by automatically uploading assets, generating changelogs, handling pre-releases, and so on.

Original work by marvinpinto, updated and refactored by crowbarmaster and then modified for EMS-ESP.

Contents

1. Usage Examples
2. Supported Parameters
3. Event Triggers
4. Versioning
5. How to get help
6. License

Usage Examples

Automatically generate a pre-release when changes land on master

This example workflow will kick in as soon as changes land on master. After running the steps to build and test your project:

1. It will create (or replace) a git tag called latest.
2. Generate a changelog from all the commits between this, and the previous latest tag.
3. Generate a new release associated with the latest tag (removing any previous associated releases).
4. Update this new release with the specified title (e.g. Development Build).
5. Upload LICENSE.txt and any jar files as release assets.
6. Mark this release as a pre-release.

You can see a working example of this workflow over at crowbarmaster/GHactions.

---
name: "pre-release"

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - "master"

jobs:
  pre-release:
    name: "Pre Release"
    runs-on: "ubuntu-latest"

    steps:
      # ...
      - name: "Build & test"
        run: |
          echo "done!"

      - uses: "emsesp/GH-Automatic-Releases@latest"
        with:
          repo_token: "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}"
          automatic_release_tag: "latest"
          prerelease: true
          title: "Development Build"
          files: |
            LICENSE.txt
            *.jar

Create a new GitHub release when tags are pushed to the repository

Similar to the previous example, this workflow will kick in as soon as new tags are pushed to GitHub. After building & testing your project:

1. Generate a changelog from all the commits between this and the previous semver-looking tag.
2. Generate a new release and associate it with this tag.
3. Upload LICENSE.txt and any jar files as release assets.

---
name: "tagged-release"

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

jobs:
  tagged-release:
    name: "Tagged Release"
    runs-on: "ubuntu-latest"

    steps:
      # ...
      - name: "Build & test"
        run: |
          echo "done!"

      - uses: "emsesp/GH-Automatic-Releases@latest"
        with:
          repo_token: "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}"
          prerelease: false
          files: |
            LICENSE.txt
            *.jar

Supported Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
repo_token**	GitHub Action token, e.g. "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}".	null
draft	Mark this release as a draft?	false
prerelease	Mark this release as a pre-release?	true
overwrite_tag	Do you aim to overwrite existing releases?	true
generate_notes	Do you wish to have release notes auto-generated?	true
automatic_release_tag	Tag name to use for automatic releases, e.g latest.	null
title	Release title; defaults to the tag name if none specified.	Tag Name
body	Release body; defaults to changelog if none specified.	Changelog
files	Files to upload as part of the release assets.	null

Outputs

The following output values can be accessed via ${{ steps.<step-id>.outputs.<output-name> }}:

Name	Description	Type
automatic_releases_tag	The release tag this action just processed	string
upload_url	The URL for uploading additional assets to the release	string
release_id	The ID that was returned for this release	string

Notes

• Parameters denoted with ** are required.
• The files parameter supports multi-line glob patterns, see repository examples.

Event Triggers

The GitHub Actions framework allows you to trigger this (and other) actions on many combinations of events. For example, you could create specific pre-releases for release candidate tags (e.g *-rc*), generate releases as changes land on master (example above), nightly releases, and much more. Read through Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions for ideas and advanced examples.

- uses: "emsesp/GH-Automatic-Releases@<VERSION>"

License

The source code for this project is released under the MIT License. This project is not associated with GitHub.