semantic-release-action

GitHub Action for running semantic-release. Respects any semantic-release configuration file in your repo or the release prop in your package.json. Exports environment variables for you to use in subsequent actions containing version numbers.

• Usage
  • Basic Usage
• Why
• Configuration
  • Example with all inputs
  • Outputs
• Maintenance

Usage

See action.yml.

Referencing the major version is (recommended by GitHub).

steps:
  # Reference the major version of a release
  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
  # Reference a specific commit
  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@c4074285a1651e4fecab9c14974d5e01b4625edf
  # Reference a minor version of a release
  - uses: codfish/[email protected]
  # Reference a branch
  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@master

Note: Whenever you use a custom docker-based GitHub Action like this one, you may notice in your run logs, one of the first steps you'll see will be GA building the image for you. You can speed up runs by pulling pre-built docker images instead of making GitHub Actions build them on every run.

steps:
  # Reference a docker image from GitHub Container Registry
  - uses: docker://ghcr.io/codfish/semantic-release-action:v1
  # Reference a docker image from Dockerhub
  - uses: docker://codfish/semantic-release-action:v1

If you're security conscious, you can pin the docker image down to a specific digest instead of using an image tag, which is a mutable reference.

steps:
  # Reference a docker image from GitHub Container Registry
  - uses: docker://ghcr.io/codfish/semantic-release-action@sha256:16ab6c16b1bff6bebdbcc6cfc07dfafff49d23c6818490500b8edb3babfff29e

Inspect the image version you want here to find the digest. If you prefer pulling from Docker Hub, check here.

Basic Usage

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1

  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

Using output variables set by semantic-release-action:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1

  # you'll need to add an `id` in order to access output variables
  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
    id: semantic
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

  - run: echo ${{ steps.semantic.outputs.release-version }}

  - run: echo "$OUTPUTS"
    env:
      OUTPUTS: ${{ toJson(steps.semantic.outputs) }}

  - uses: codfish/some-other-action@v1
    with:
      release-version: ${{ steps.semantic.outputs.release-version }}

Example: Only run an action if a new version was created.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1

  # you'll need to add an `id` in order to access output variables
  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
    id: semantic
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

  - name: docker push version
    if: steps.semantic.outputs.new-release-published == 'true'
    run: |
      docker tag some-image some-image:$TAG
      docker push some-image:$TAG
    env:
      TAG: v$RELEASE_VERSION

Using environment variables set by semantic-release-action:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1

  - uses: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

  - run: |
      echo $RELEASE_VERSION
      echo $RELEASE_MAJOR
      echo $RELEASE_MINOR
      echo $RELEASE_PATCH

If you're not publishing to npm and only want to use this action for GitHub releases, the easiest approach would simply be to add "private": true, to your package.json.

Why

It's fairly easy to run semantic-release as a "host action," aka something that runs directly on the VM.

steps:
  - run: npx semantic-release
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

If you're just publishing a node package, then this could still work well for you. The problem I found with this is when I was in projects where I had subsequent steps/actions in which I wanted to know whether a new version was cut.

Use Case: For instance, in an application where I'm using semantic-release to manage GitHub releases, but also building and pushing docker images. Dockerhub has a nice GitHub integration to handle this for us, but some other registries do not. If I need to cut a new release, then update a docker registry by adding a new tagged build, I'll want to run semantic-release and then build a docker image, tag it with a version and push it up. In my case I like to push up tags for latest, the semver (i.e. v1.8.3), and just the major the version (i.e. v1).

I want to know 1) if semantic-release cut a new version and 2) what the version is.

There's a number of ways to handle this, but the most elegant way I found to do it was to abstract it into it's own custom action. It abstracts away whatever logic you need to figure out what that new release number is.

This also scales well, just in case I want to add some flexibility and functionality to this action, I can easily leverage it across any project.

Configuration

You can pass in semantic-release configuration options via GitHub Action inputs using with.

It's important to note, NONE of these inputs are required. The action will automatically use any semantic-release configuration found in your repo (.releaserc, release.config.js, release prop in package.json)

Note: Each input will take precedence over options configured in the configuration file and shareable configurations.

Input Variable	Description
branches	The branches on which releases should happen.
plugins	Define the list of plugins to use. Plugins will run in series, in the order defined, for each steps if they implement it
extends	List of modules or file paths containing a shareable configuration.
dry_run	The objective of the dry-run mode is to get a preview of the pending release. Dry-run mode skips the following steps: prepare, publish, success and fail.
repository_url	The git repository URL
tag_format	The Git tag format used by semantic-release to identify releases.

Note: The branch input is DEPRECATED. Will continue to be supported for v1. Use branches instead. Previously used in semantic-release v15 to set a single branch on which releases should happen.

• GitHub Actions Inputs: https://help.github.com/en/articles/metadata-syntax-for-github-actions#inputs
• Semantic Release Configuration: https://github.com/semantic-release/semantic-release/blob/master/docs/usage/configuration.md

Example with all inputs

steps:
  - run: codfish/semantic-release-action@v1
    with:
      dry_run: true
      branches: |
        [
          '+([0-9])?(.{+([0-9]),x}).x',
          'master',
          'next',
          'next-major',
          {
            name: 'beta',
            prerelease: true
          },
          {
            name: 'alpha',
            prerelease: true
          }
        ]
      repository_url: https://github.com/codfish/semantic-release-action.git
      tag_format: 'v${version}'
      extends: '@semantic-release/apm-config'
      plugins: |
        ['@semantic-release/commit-analyzer', '@semantic-release/release-notes-generator', '@semantic-release/npm', '@semantic-release/github']
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

Outputs

semantic-release-action sets both output variables and environment variables because why not? Allows users the ability to use whichever they want. I don't know or understand every use case there might be so this is a way to cover more cases.

Docs: https://help.github.com/en/articles/metadata-syntax-for-github-actions#outputs

Output Variables:

Output Variable	Description
new-release-published	Either 'true' when a new release was published or 'false' when no release was published. Allows other actions to run or not-run based on this
release-version	The new releases' semantic version, i.e. 1.8.3
release-major	The new releases' major version number, i.e. 1
release-minor	The new releases' minor version number, i.e. 8
release-patch	The new releases' patch version number, i.e. 3
release-notes	The release notes of the next release.

Environment Variables:

Environment Variable	Description
NEW_RELEASE_PUBLISHED	Either 'true' when a new release was published or 'false' when no release was published. Allows other actions to run or not-run based on this
RELEASE_VERSION	The new releases' semantic version, i.e. 1.8.3
RELEASE_MAJOR	The new releases' major version number, i.e. 1
RELEASE_MINOR	The new releases' minor version number, i.e. 8
RELEASE_PATCH	The new releases' patch version number, i.e. 3
RELEASE_NOTES	The release notes of the next release in markdown.

Maintenance

Make the new release available to those binding to the major version tag: Move the major version tag (v1, v2, etc.) to point to the ref of the current release. This will act as the stable release for that major version. You should keep this tag updated to the most recent stable minor/patch release.

git tag -fa v1 -m "Update v1 tag" && git push origin v1 --force

Reference: https://github.com/actions/toolkit/blob/master/docs/action-versioning.md#recommendations