Minimalistic, opinionated, and predictable release automation tool.
Think Prettier but for automated releases: minimalistic, opinionated, and, most of all, predictable. This tool combines the usual expectations from a release manager but brings practicality to the table.
Here's the publishing pipeline this tool implements:
- Analyzes commits since the latest published release.
- Determines next package version based on Conventional Commits specification.
- Runs the publishing script.
- Creates release a tag and a release commit in Git.
- Creates a new release on GitHub.
- Pushes changes to GitHub.
- Comments on relevant GitHub issues and pull requests.
While this sounds like what any other release tool would do, the beauty lies in details. Let's take a more detailed look then at what this tool does differently.
The workflow above is the default (and the only) behavior.
That's the release process I personally want for all of my libraries, and that's why it's the default behavior for this tool. If you wish for the release automation tool to do something differently or skip certain steps, then this tool is not for you. I want a predictable, consistent release process, and that's largely achieved by the predictable release workflow for all my projects.
A release tag and a release commit are automatically created.
commit cee5327f0c7fc9048de7a18ef7b5339acd648a98 (tag: v1.2.0)
Author: GitHub Actions <actions@github.com>
Date: Thu Apr 21 12:00:00 2022 +0100
chore(release): v1.2.0
Release is a part of the project's history so it's crucial to have explicit release marker in Git presented by a release commit and a release tag.
If publishing fails, no release commits/tags will be created or pushed to Git.
Here's an average experience you'd have if your release (read "publishing to NPM") fails with an average release manager in the wild:
- Process is terminated but the release tags/commits have already been created and pushed to remote.
- You need to manually revert the release commit.
- You need to manually delete the release tag from everywhere.
- You need to manually delete any other side-effects your release has (i.e. GitHub release).
For an automated tooling there's sure a lot of the word "manual" in this scenario. The worst part is that you cannot just "retry" the release—you need to clean up all the artifacts the release manager has left you otherwise it'll treat the release as successful, stating there's nothing new to release.
The bottom line is: failed releases happen. The package registry may be down, your publishing credentials may be wrong, or the entire internet may just decide to take a hiccup. The tooling you use should acknowledge that and support you in those failure cases, not leave you on your own to do manual cleanup chores after the automated solution.
- GitHub-only. This tool is designed for projects hosted on GitHub.
- Release tag has the following format:
v${version}
(i.e.v1.2.3
). - Release commit has the following format:
chore(release): v${version}
. - Does not generate or update the
CHANGELOG
file. This tool generates automatic release notes from your commits and creates a new GitHub release with those notes. Use GitHub releases instead of changelogs.
npm install @ossjs/release --save-dev
Create a ossjs.release.config.js
file on the root of your package.
{
/**
* The publishing script to run.
* @example "npm publish"
*/
script: string
}
This tool exposes a CLI which you can use with any continuous integration providers. No need to install actions, configure things, and pray for it to work.
{
"name": "my-package",
"scripts": {
"release": "release publish"
}
}
# .github/workflows/release.yml
name: release
on:
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
release:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Set up Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v3
with:
always-auth: true
registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org
# Configure the Git user that'd author release commits.
- name: Setup Git
run: |
git config user.name "GitHub Actions"
git config user.email "actions@github.com"
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test
- run: npm run release
with:
# Set the "GITHUB_TOKEN" environmental variable
# required by "@ossjs/release" to communicate with GitHub.
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
# Set the "NODE_AUTH_TOKEN" environmental variable
# that "actions/setup-node" uses as the "_authToken"
# in the generated ".npmrc" file to authenticate
# publishing to NPM registry.
NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
Publishes a new version of the package.
Option name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
--dry-run , -d |
boolean |
Creates a release in a dry-run mode. Note: this still requires a valid GITHUB_TOKEN environmental variable, as the dry-run mode will perform read operations on your repository. |
release publish
Generates release notes and creates a new GitHub release for the given release tag.
This command is designed to recover from a partially failed release process, as well as to generate changelogs for old releases.
- This command requires an existing (merged) release tag;
- This command accepts past release tags;
- This command has no effect if a GitHub release for the given tag already exists.
Argument name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
tag |
string |
Tag name of the release. |
# Generate release notes and create a GitHub release
# for the release tag "v1.0.3".
release notes v1.0.3
Displays information about a particular release.
Release information includes the following:
- Commit associated with the release tag;
- Release status (public/draft/unpublished);
- GitHub release URL if present.
Argument name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
tag |
string |
(Optional) Tag name of the release to show. |
# Display info about the latest release.
release show
# Display info about a specific release.
release show v0.19.2
Below you see how Release compares to other tools. Keep in mind that I'm only comparing how those tools work by default because that's the only thing I care about. Unlike Release, other tools here can satisfy different use-cases through configuration, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Release | Semantic Release | Auto | Changesets | |
---|---|---|---|---|
First-class citizen | CLI | Commit | Pull request (labels) | Changeset |
Derives next version from commits | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Creates a GitHub release | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Creates a release commit in Git | ✅ | ❌ 1 | ✅ | ✅ |
Comments on relevant GitHub issues | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Comments on relevant GitHub pull requests | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ? |
Reverts tags/commits if publishing fails | ✅ | ❌ | ? | ? |
Supports monorepos | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Supports dry run | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
1 - requires additional plugins.