Project version action

Sets project version to YYYY.MM.DD.BUILD where:

YYYY.MM.DD is the current action runner date
BUILD is Github run number (unique number incremented on every build)

Resulting project version is unique but also meaningful since it also contains the date when the project was build.
Example of resulting version: 2021.10.17.123.

This format of versioning is better suited for projects with continuous delivery model of development: when releases are frequent and with relatively small incremental changes in between. For this type of projects semver does not make much sense while the actual date in version format does.

Input parameters

project-file: (optional) path to the file which contains the version of the project
Defaults to: package.json
version-stub: (optional) stub version value
Defaults to: '0.0.0.0'
leading-zeros: (optional) pad month and day with 0 for a single-digit values
Defaults to false e.g 2021/06/07 current date by default results in 2021.6.7.123 version and otherwise in 2021.06.07.123
time-zone: (optional) time zone to be used to determine the current date/time
If not set the action runner current date/time is used
version-file-exists: (optional) Check if specified by version-file parameter file does exist in repository Defaults to: true. Set it to false if there is no version-file to set version in e.g. when only VERSION environment variable is needed for build

Output parameters

project-version: is set to the resulting version and can be referenced in subsequent steps via steps.step_id.outputs.project-version
VERSION: (environment variable) is also set to resulting project version, is set for subsequent steps and has shorter syntax ${{ env.VERSION }}

Usage

Default settings

In your project set version to some predefined stub version value. This value should probably still be a valid version number if you intend to compile your project outside Github action. For example if Node project if its package.json contains stub version of 0.0.0.0 everything should work with default settings:

{
  "name": "example",
  "version": "0.0.0.0"
}

Placement in CI pipeline

Add EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6 to your CI script after actions/checkout@v3 step:

    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - name: Set project version for Node.js project
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6

All subsequent build steps then will be able to reference current build version either via VERSION environment variable or via project-version step's output parameter.

Input parameters

If a different from package.json file is used or a different from 0.0.0.0 stub version value was specified set project-file and version-stub input parameters accordingly. For example for Node.js project with default three-parts version format it could be:

    - name: Set project version for Node.js project
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6
      with:
        version-stub: '0.0.0'

While for .NET project with default "local" build number set to 65534.65534.65534.65534 it could be:

    - name: Set project version for .NET project
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6
      with:
        version-file: example.csproj
        version-stub: '65534.65534.65534.65534'

By default this action does not pad single-digit "month" and "day" bits of the resulting version with 0 since some build systems do not allow leading zeros in version parts. Use leading-zeroes: true to force the padding:

    - name: Set project version for Cabal project
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6
      with:
        version-file: example.cabal
        leading-zeros: true

Since this action uses action runner's local date/time, which is by default is UTC, the resulting version might be one day before or after your local date, depending on your local time zone. To avoid this situation you can either set runner's time zone to your local time zone, e.g.:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      TZ: Australia/Sydney

or set input parameter time-zone to your local time zone, e.g.:

    - name: Set project version for Node project
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6
      with:
        time-zone: Australia/Sydney

The former will change time zone for entire action job while the latter will use it only to calculate the version without changing it for the runner.

If only VERSION environment variable (or project-version step's output parameter) is needed for a build and there is no version-file to set version in set version-file-exists input parameter to false, e.g.:

    - name: Set VERSION environment variable only
      uses: EduardSergeev/project-version-action@v6
      with:
        version-file-exists: false

Output parameter

In addition to environment variable VERSION being set to the calculated current build number (which can be used in the subsequent build steps via ${{ env.VERSION }} expression) this action also sets output parameter project-version to the same build number which can be read in the consequent build steps via ${{ steps.[this-action-step_id].outputs.project-version }} expression.