GitHub Action - Releases API

This GitHub Action (written in JavaScript) wraps the Create a Release endpoint and Auto Increment Tag Version feature. Which allows to create tag automatically when pushed to the release branch. This is also an alternative to Samson Release functionality.

Usage

Pre-requisites

Create a workflow .yml file in your .github/workflows directory. An example workflow is available below. For more information, reference the GitHub Help Documentation for Creating a workflow file.

Inputs

For more information on these inputs, see the API Documentation

Parameter	Description	Required	Default
tag_name	The name of the tag for this release.	N	Auto Incremented
release_name	The name of the release.	N	TAG_NAME
body	Text describing the contents of the release	N	N/A
draft	true to create a draft (unpublished) release, false to create a published one.	N	false
prerelease	true to identify the release as a prerelease. false to identify the release as a full release.	N	false
prerelease_suffix	The suffix added to a prerelease tag, if none already exists.	N	beta
auto_increment_type	Used for auto-incrementing the tag version. One of (major, minor, patch, prerelease, premajor).	N	patch
tag_schema	Used for computing the tag schema. One of (continuous, semantic).	N	continuous

Outputs

For more information on these outputs, see the API Documentation for an example of what these outputs look like

Parameter	Description
id	The release ID
html_url	The URL users can navigate to in order to view the release. i.e. https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World/releases/v1.0.0
upload_url	The URL for uploading assets to the release, which could be used by GitHub Actions for additional uses, for example the @actions/upload-release-asset GitHub Action
previous_tag	The most recent tag found during auto incrementing the tag version.
current_tag	The tag used to create a Release.

Example workflow - Create a release

Auto Increment - Patch type - Push to master

On every push to a master branch will create tag incrementally.

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

name: Create Release

jobs:
  build:
    name: Create Release
    runs-on: ['self-hosted']
    steps:
      - name: Create Release
        id: create_release
        uses: zendesk/action-create-release@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Sample Output:

previous_tag: v5.0.3
current_tag:  v5.0.4
id:           123
upload_url:   https://uploads.github.com/repos/zendesk/Hello-World/releases/1/assets
html_url:     https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World/releases/v1.0.0

Auto Increment types and outputs

Type	Previous Tag	Current Tag
major	v5.0.1	v6.0.0
minor	v5.0.1	v5.1.1
patch	v5.0.1	v5.0.2
prerelease	v5.0.1	v5.0.2-beta.0
premajor	v5.0.1	v6.0.1-beta.0

Tag as parameter

On every push to a tag matching the pattern v*, create a release:

on:
  push:
    # Sequence of patterns matched against refs/tags
    tags:
      - 'v*' # Push events to matching v*, i.e. v1.0, v20.15.10

name: Create Release

jobs:
  build:
    name: Create Release
    runs-on: ['self-hosted']
    steps:
      - name: Create Release
        id: create_release
        uses: zendesk/action-create-release@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # This token is provided by Actions, you do not need to create your own token
        with:
          tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
          release_name: Release ${{ github.ref }}
          body: |
            Changes in this Release
            - First Change
            - Second Change
          draft: false
          prerelease: false

This will create a Release, as well as a release event, which could be handled by a third party service, or by GitHub Actions for additional uses, for example the @actions/upload-release-asset GitHub Action. This uses the GITHUB_TOKEN provided by the virtual environment, so no new token is needed.

Contributing

We would love you to contribute to @zendesk/action-create-release, pull requests are welcome! Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License