Release Automation Action

A GitHub action to minimize manual steps required to release (semantic) versions of a software project.

1. Runs every time a pull request is merged against a branch where you do development and releases
2. Looks through all the merged PR's since the previous release
3. Based on their labels (e.g. "Breaking change", "Feature", "Fix"), creates a new PR proposing which version to release next
4. Once the proposed version PR is merged, it will publish the respective Github release

Usage

Prerequisites

• Branch protection rules (in Branch Settings)
  • To prevent auto-merging releases into your develop-branch without reviews (e.g. 2 approvals)
• Allow auto-merge (in General Settings)
  • If you want to release right after merging the PR, otherwise use the enable-auto-merge option
• Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests (in Actions Settings)
  • If you use the default secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN, otherwise use a repo scoped Personal Access Token (PAT)
• Copy this changelog configuration into your repository and label your PR's with it's categories.

Create a workflow using this example:

name: Release management

on:
  # Manual run from Github UI (e.g. for when a merged PR labels have changed)
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      # Propose a "-beta" when you want to share a testing version
      pre-release:
        required: false
        type: boolean
        default: false
        description: "This release will be labeled as non-production ready"
      # Publish the current version now, useful if the automated run failed
      github-release:
        required: false
        type: boolean
        default: false
        description: "Publish Github release for the current version"
  # Monitor pull request events
  pull_request:
    types:
      - closed
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  release:
    # Permisson to push commits and create pull requests
    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: write
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Preparing the next release
        uses: Adyen/[email protected]
        with:
          # Using a PAT gives the workflow more autonomy than the default GITHUB_TOKEN  
          token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN || secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          # Branch to monitor, should be listed in `on.pull_request.branches`
          develop-branch: main
          # List of files (separated by spaces) to write the project's version
          version-files: package.json
          # Propose production release by default
          pre-release: ${{ inputs.pre-release || false }}
          # For a manual Github release 
          github-release: ${{ inputs.github-release || false }}
          # Prefix to be used on your Github release
          release-title: Your Project Name

For a complete list of inputs and outputs see action.yml.

Development

First, you'll need to have a reasonably modern version of node handy. This won't work with versions older than 9, for instance. Consider using Github Codespaces or Gitpod.

Install the dependencies

$ npm install

Build the typescript and package it for distribution

$ npm run build && npm run package

Run the unit tests ✔️

$ npm test

 PASS  ./index.test.js
  ✓ throws invalid number (3ms)
  ✓ wait 500 ms (504ms)
  ✓ test runs (95ms)

...

Change the Code

Most toolkit and CI/CD operations involve async operations so the action is run in an async function.

import * as core from '@actions/core';
...

async function run() {
  try { 
      ...
  } 
  catch (error) {
    core.setFailed(error.message);
  }
}

run()

See the toolkit documentation for the various packages.

Validate

We perform an integration test by referencing ./ in test.yml workflow.

See the actions tab for runs of this action!

Self-publishing

This action automates it's own releasing. See the releases.yml. 🚀

Disclaimer: This is not an officially supported Adyen product.