This action creates a draft release for the next version to be released. It reads the release file in .github/release.yml and creates a draft release with the next version number based on the current version number and the labels of the pull requests merged since the last release.

To use this action, you need to create a release file in .github/release.yml as shown in the GitHub documentation for creating a release file.

Note

This action requires read and write access to the repository's releases, this usually means contents: write permissions for the job running the action.

You might need to change the permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN or use a personal token with the appropriate permissions.

To decide whether the next release should be a major or minor release, the action looks at the labels of the pull requests merged since the last release. If there is at least one pull request with the label specified in the major-label input, the next release will be a major release. Otherwise, if there is at least one pull request with the label specified in the minor-label input, the next release will be a minor release. Otherwise, the next release will be a patch release.

When the action is triggered on a tag push, the action will create a release with the version number specified in the tag.

name: Draft Release

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  draft-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: lucacome/[email protected]
        with:
          minor-label: 'enhancement'
          major-label: 'change'

The header and footer have four special placeholders that will be replaced with the version number of the next release:

• {{version}} will be replaced with the version number of the next release.
• {{version-number}} will be replaced with the version number of the next release without the v prefix.
• {{previous-version}} will be replaced with the version number of the previous release.
• {{previous-version-number}} will be replaced with the version number of the previous release without the v prefix.

Additionally, you can use the variables input to define additional variables that can be used in the header and footer. These variables should be provided as a list of key-value pairs, using the format key=variable, with each pair separated by a new line. The key represents the variable name, while the value corresponds to the variable's assigned value. The variables can be used in the header and footer by using the syntax {{variable-name}}.

name: Draft Release

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
    tags:
      - 'v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+'

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  draft-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: lucacome/[email protected]
        with:
          minor-label: 'enhancement'
          major-label: 'change'
          variables: |
            my-variable=My Variable
          notes-footer: |
            This is a footer.
            It can be multiline.
            And can use variables like {{version}} and {{version-number}}.
            Or custom variables like {{my-variable}}.

name: Draft Release

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  draft-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: lucacome/[email protected]
        id: draft-release
        with:
          minor-label: 'enhancement'
          major-label: 'change'

      - name: Get Version Number
        run: echo ${{ steps.draft-release.outputs.version }}