Alternative tag format for prebuild uploads

[daviwil]

Hey folks! Quick question: what do you think about having a parameter that allows the user to define an alternative format for their release tags when prebuilds get uploaded to GitHub. This would allow projects that don't use the v1.0.0 tag format with the v prefix to continue tagging in their own way while uploading prebuilds. An example of this is node-pty which doesn't add the v prefix to their tags.

Would it be enough to allow the specification of a --tag-prefix so that someone could clear out the v prefix if they needed to, or should we go for a full --tag-format which allows an arbitrary format string, maybe something like "v{VERSION}"?

Looks like the code that controls this is here. It'd need to be updated in prebuild-install too. If you think it's a good idea I'll be happy to send PRs to both projects to enable this.

Thanks!

[ralphtheninja]

@daviwil --tag-format sounds good, which could default to v${version}.

I'm curious, what's your process when releasing node-pty at the moment? Are you creating the github releases manually? How are you bumping the module version when publishing to npm etc?

[daviwil]

That's a great question, I'd have to ask @Tyriar about that. I forked node-pty to make a node-pty-prebuilt package using prebuild, so I let prebuild create the tag/release after I set the new version in package.json. We're investigating how to migrate the prebuild support back into node-pty itself so that's why I'm looking for a way to accommodate it's existing tagging scheme.

[ralphtheninja]

@daviwil I'm sure you have your reasons for picking tags without the v-prefix, but have you considered starting using it? 😀 It would mean less complexity for this module, but might be difficult for you to change. I don't really mind the change, since it's not a huge change of complexity, just bringing it up.

[daviwil]

I think node-pty used to have a v prefix in the past but it got dropped at some point. Might just be a matter of taste, I'm not sure :)

[Tyriar]

@ralphtheninja typically for node-pty I do the following:

1. Update package.json version, commit and push
2. npm publish
3. Create the GH release manually.

I never included the v myself, I think it's fairly common not to. VS Code doesn't either for example.

[Tyriar]

Might just be a matter of taste

Pretty much https://github.com/Tyriar/node-pty/tags?after=0.4.1, that's the first release after forking.

[ralphtheninja]

I personally use npm version patch | minor | major, which bumps package.json for me, commits and tags and that's the reason the v end up there by default.

For leveldown we do:

1. npm version patch | minor | major
2. git push

This will trigger prebuild-ci on travis and appveyor, which calls prebuild which creates the release on github and uploads the binaries.

After the binaries have been built, then we do npm publish

[mathiask88]

I don't mind having a custom tag format, but how do you want to get prebuild-install to know what tag format it should use to search for a release?

[ralphtheninja]

Sorry if this turned into some meta discussion 😁 We can definitely add the format thingie.

[mathiask88]

In the moment of writing this I answered the question myself
You could add it to the modules package json :D

  "scripts": {
    "install": "prebuild-install --tag-format xyz || node-gyp rebuild"
  }

[daviwil]

@mathiask88 yep, that's what I had in mind :)

[Tyriar]

It would mean less complexity for this module, but might be difficult for you to change.

Also given this discussion I'm fine with changing to a v prefix considering npm recommends it with npm version, if you don't think this will be generally useful. It'll look a little ugly when looking at tags but node-pty's releases already do as I changed it before.

[daviwil]

It'd definitely be simpler to follow the v convention. I would guess that most people would be following that convention so maybe a --tag-format param isn't as useful to the general public. Probably not a big code change at any rate.

[daviwil]

I think I'll close this for now since node-pty might use the v tag prefix. Thanks for the helpful discussion!