This action generates release notes based on JIRA ticket numbers found in commits, and creates a PDF file. It can also email you the notes.

Built as part of the #ActionsHackathon

You need to provide 2 refs to the action, head and base. The action steps are as followed:

1. Fetch all the commits between the head and base refs
2. Find any reference to JIRA ticket numbers, based on the jira-code you provide
3. Will fetch the ticket titles using the jira-host, jira-username and jira-password you provide
4. If pdf is set to true: 4.1. Will generate a pdf with the list of changed tickets, and output the file path under the pdf variable otherwise 4.2. Will generate markdown with the list of changed tickets, and output it under the markdown variable
5. (OPTIONAL) If the email-to and sendgrid-api-key are provided, and email will be sent with the notes

JIRA supports authentication via username password. However as an alternative to using your password it is possible to substitute it with an API Token.

Details are available here

This action can compare any 2 refs (head and base). For example you could compare 2 branches together.

But the action was designed to work with github pull requests.

For example, when merging into your 'live' branch, you can push out emails to the team.

Github actions, when triggered on pull requests, provide the two SHAs needed to make the comparison:

• github.event.pull_request.head.sha
• github.event.pull_request.base.sha

You can find an example below on how to use those.

More information can be found here

actions/checkout@v2 creates a shallow clone of the repository by default. Which might not contain all the refs required to generate the notes. Make sure to clone a full repo, or set the unshallow property to true as shown below

Required The head ref or source branch

Required The base ref or source branch

Required Jira ticket code e.g ABC

Required Jira host e.g jira.mycompany.com

Required Jira username

Required Jira password

Recipients for the release notes

Sendgrid API key (required for emails)

Subject of the release email

Name of the app or service

If set to true, will generate pdf otherwise markdown, default: false

If set to true, will unshallow the repository before fetching the commits, default: false

The path of the generated pdf

The markdown generated

name: Forward release notes

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [closed]
    branches:
      - live

jobs:
  release-notes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event.pull_request.merged == true
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Generate and email notes
      uses: actions/jira-release-notes@v1.0.1
      id: pdf_generator
      with:
        head: ${{github.event.pull_request.head.sha}}
        base: ${{github.event.pull_request.base.sha}}
        jira-code: 'ABC'
        jira-host: jira.mycompany.org
        jira-username: ${{secrets.jira_username}}
        jira-password: ${{secrets.jira_password}}
        email-to: 'john@mycompany.org,jane@mycompany.org'
        sendgrid-api-key: ${{secrets.sendgrid_api_key}}
        app-name: 'My Awesome Service'
        pdf: true
        unshallow: true
    - name: Process the pdf
      run: echo "The generated pdf was ${{ steps.pdf_generator.outputs.pdf }}"