/action-gh-release

πŸ“¦ :octocat: GitHub Action for creating GitHub Releases

Primary LanguageTypeScriptMIT LicenseMIT

πŸ“¦ :octocat:

action gh-release

A GitHub Action for creating GitHub Releases on Linux, Windows, and macOS virtual environments


🀸 Usage

πŸš₯ Limit releases to pushes to tags

Typically usage of this action involves adding a step to a build that is gated pushes to git tags. You may find step.if field helpful in accomplishing this as it maximizes the reuse value of your workflow for non-tag pushes.

Below is a simple example of step.if tag gating

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

You can also use push config tag filter

name: Main

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*.*.*'

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

⬆️ Uploading release assets

You can configure a number of options for your GitHub release and all are optional.

A common case for GitHub releases is to upload your binary after its been validated and packaged. Use the with.files input to declare a newline-delimited list of glob expressions matching the files you wish to upload to GitHub releases. If you'd like you can just list the files by name directly.

Below is an example of uploading a single asset named Release.txt

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build
        run: echo ${{ github.sha }} > Release.txt
      - name: Test
        run: cat Release.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        with:
          files: Release.txt
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Below is an example of uploading more than one asset with a GitHub release

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build
        run: echo ${{ github.sha }} > Release.txt
      - name: Test
        run: cat Release.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        with:
          files: |
            Release.txt
            LICENSE
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

⚠️ Note: Notice the | in the yaml syntax above ☝️. That let's you effectively declare a multi-line yaml string. You can learn more about multi-line yaml syntax here

πŸ“ External release notes

Many systems exist that can help generate release notes for you. This action supports loading release notes from a path in your repository's build to allow for the flexibility of using any changelog generator for your releases, including a human πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Generate Changelog
        run: echo "# Good things have arrived" > ${{ github.workflow }}-CHANGELOG.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        with:
          body_path: ${{ github.workflow }}-CHANGELOG.txt
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          GITHUB_REPOSITORY: my_gh_org/my_gh_repo

πŸ’… Customizing

inputs

The following are optional as step.with keys

Name Type Description
body String Text communicating notable changes in this release
body_path String Path to load text communicating notable changes in this release
draft Boolean Indicator of whether or not this release is a draft
prerelease Boolean Indicator of whether or not is a prerelease
files String Newline-delimited globs of paths to assets to upload for release
name String Name of the release. defaults to tag name
tag_name String Name of a tag. defaults to github.ref
fail_on_unmatched_files Boolean Indicator of whether to fail if any of the files globs match nothing

πŸ’‘When providing a body and body_path at the same time, body_path will be attempted first, then falling back on body if the path can not be read from.

outputs

The following outputs can be accessed via ${{ steps.<step-id>.outputs }} from this action

Name Type Description
url String Github.com URL for the release
upload_url String URL for uploading assets to the release

environment variables

The following are required as step.env keys

Name Description
GITHUB_TOKEN GITHUB_TOKEN as provided by secrets
GITHUB_REPOSITORY Name of a target repository in <owner>/<repo> format. defaults to the current repository

⚠️ Note: This action was previously implemented as a Docker container, limiting its use to GitHub Actions Linux virtual environments only. With recent releases, we now support cross platform usage. You'll need to remove the docker:// prefix in these versions

Doug Tangren (softprops) 2019