Alternative to hashed asset names

[rhyst]

Hey, I'm using your automatic-releases action. I'm using it with the tag set to latest so it replaces the release and I notice that uploads quite often fail with:

(Validation Failed: {"resource":"ReleaseAsset","code":"already_exists","field":"name"})

This seems quite common (it happens with this https://github.com/actions/upload-release-asset too).

Your current solution is to add a hash to the filename which works however I want to be able to access the release assets at a known url so it would be better if they uploaded with their original name.

Do you know why this error happens and if there is a way to upload with the same name?

Thanks for any response and thanks for making the action.

[marvinpinto]

Hey! The hashed assets thing is a tough one. I suspect the storage mechanism used for assets is something like a plain old key-value store (similar to S3), except without the folder/directory abstraction. This means that trying to upload the file foo/index.js and bar/index.js will result in a filename that clashes. You can see an example of this on the releases page.

One thing you could do to work around this is make sure that your assets each have a unique filename before the action runs. That way you should be able to get a hold of them at a known URL.

[rhyst]

I think I misinterpreted what the hashed file names were for.

My filenames are unique and it seems like the assets from the deleted (to be replaced) release were hanging around in some format or cache somewhere. I assumed the hashed filenames were to deal with this, but it seems like you were solving the different problem of legitimately clashing names (from different dirs like you say).

Have you seen the issue I am describing? Possibly not if you are creating tagged releases and not just replacing the same one (my repo is not producing anything builds that need versioning).

[marvinpinto]

Hmm yeah I have not noticed an issue with cached files from previous tagged releases. Not sure why either. The only thing I can think of is try deleting all the files in the previous release or the entire (tagged) release itself before creating a new release with the same name.

[marvinpinto]

I'm going to close this for now but feel free to re-open if there's anything outstanding 👍