Release Please Action

Automate releases with Conventional Commit Messages.

Setting up this action

1. If you haven't already done so, create a .github/workflows folder in your repository (this is where your actions will live).

2. Now create a .github/workflows/release-please.yml file with these contents:

   on:
     push:
       branches:
         - main
   
   permissions:
     contents: write
     pull-requests: write
   
   name: release-please
   
   jobs:
     release-please:
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
         - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
           with:
             release-type: node
             package-name: release-please-action

3. Merge the above action into your repository and make sure new commits follow the Conventional Commits convention, release-please will start creating Release PRs for you.

4. For an alternative configuration that provides easier bootstrapping options for initial setup, follow these instructions (ignore the cli section) and then configure this action as follows:

   #...(same as above)
       steps:
         - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
           with:
             command: manifest

Configuration

GitHub credentials

release-please requires a GitHub token to access the GitHub API. You configure this token via the token configuration option. You can use the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN secret, however, note that any resources created by release-please (release tag or release pull request) will not trigger future GitHub actions workflows.

From the docs:

When you use the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN to perform tasks, events triggered by the GITHUB_TOKEN will not create a new workflow run. This prevents you from accidentally creating recursive workflow runs.

This means that GitHub actions CI checks will not run on the release pull request and workflows normally triggered by release.created events will also not run. You will want to configure a GitHub actions secret with a personal access token if you want other workflows to run.

The command option

Some additional info regarding the command property.

• github-release: creates GitHub releases (as mentioned here) based on the most recently merged release PR and the release strategy being used.
• release-pr: uses Conventional Commits to propose a candidate release pull request. This pull request, once merged, is used by github-release/manifest
• manifest: use source controlled files containing releaser specific configuration (the release-please-config.json) as well package version tracking (the .release-please-manifest.json).
• manifest-pr: uses the manifest file release-please-config.json to propose a candidate release

Workflow Permissions

This workflow will need the following permissions in your workflow file:

permissions:
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write

For more information about permissions:

• github apis protected by contents permission
• github apis protected by pull_requests permission
• https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-guides/automatic-token-authentication#permissions-for-the-github_token
• https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/enabling-features-for-your-repository/managing-github-actions-settings-for-a-repository#enabling-workflows-for-private-repository-forks
• https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/assigning-permissions-to-jobs

Release types supported

Release Please automates releases for the following flavors of repositories:

Outputs

Properties that are available after the action executed.

How release please works

Release Please automates CHANGELOG generation, the creation of GitHub releases, and version bumps for your projects. Release Please does so by parsing your git history, looking for Conventional Commit messages, and creating release PRs.

What's a Release PR?

Rather than continuously releasing what's landed to your default branch, release-please maintains Release PRs:

These Release PRs are kept up-to-date as additional work is merged. When you're ready to tag a release, simply merge the release PR.

How should I write my commits?

Release Please assumes you are using Conventional Commit messages.

The most important prefixes you should have in mind are:

• fix: which represents bug fixes, and correlates to a SemVer patch.
• feat: which represents a new feature, and correlates to a SemVer minor.
• feat!:, or fix!:, refactor!:, etc., which represent a breaking change (indicated by the !) and will result in a SemVer major.

Overriding the Changelog Sections

To output more commit information in the changelog, a JSON formatted String can be added to the Action using the changelog-types input parameter. This could look something like this:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          release-type: node
          package-name: release-please-action
          changelog-types: '[{"type":"feat","section":"Features","hidden":false},{"type":"fix","section":"Bug Fixes","hidden":false},{"type":"chore","section":"Miscellaneous","hidden":false}]'

Supporting multiple release branches

release-please has the ability to target not default branches. You can even use separate release strategies (release-type). To configure, simply configure multiple workflows that specify a different default-branch:

Configuration for main (default) branch (.github/workflows/release-main.yaml):

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          release-type: node
          package-name: release-please-action

Configuration for 1.x (default) branch (.github/workflows/release-1.x.yaml):

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - 1.x
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          release-type: node
          package-name: release-please-action
          default-branch: 1.x

Automating publication to npm

With a few additions, the Release Please action can be made to publish to npm when a Release PR is merged:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        id: release
        with:
          release-type: node
          package-name: test-release-please
      # The logic below handles the npm publication:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        # these if statements ensure that a publication only occurs when
        # a new release is created:
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: 12
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
      - run: npm ci
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
      - run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{secrets.NPM_TOKEN}}
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}

So that you can keep 2FA enabled for npm publications, we recommend setting registry-url to your own Wombat Dressing Room deployment.

Creating major/minor tags

If you are using release-please to publish a GitHub action, you will likely want to tag a major and minor tag during a release, i.e., if you are releasing v2.8.3, you will also want to update tags v2 and v2.8. This allows your users to pin to v2, and get updates to your library without updating their workflows.

The release-please-action has the outputs major, minor, and release_created to facilitate this. These outputs can be used conditionally, like so:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        id: release
        with:
          release-type: node
          package-name: ${{env.ACTION_NAME}}
          command: github-release
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: tag major and minor versions
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
        run: |
          git config user.name github-actions[bot]
          git config user.email 41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com
          git remote add gh-token "https://${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}@github.com/google-github-actions/release-please-action.git"
          git tag -d v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }} || true
          git tag -d v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }} || true
          git push origin :v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }} || true
          git push origin :v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }} || true
          git tag -a v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }} -m "Release v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}"
          git tag -a v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }} -m "Release v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }}"
          git push origin v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}
          git push origin v${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }}

Manifest release output

When using a manifest command the outputs are modified to have a general releases-created value to test if any releases were created. Package specific outputs can be accessed by using the package path prefixed output.

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: Run Release Please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        id: release
        with:
          command: manifest
      - run: echo "A release was created."
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.releases_created }}
      # For root level packages: ${{ steps.release.outputs.package-a--tag_name }}
      - run: echo "Release ${{ steps.release.outputs['packages/package-a--tag_name'] }} created for package-a."
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs['packages/package-a--release_created'] }}

Updating additional files

You can update additional files with the extra-files input.

See the generic updater docs for more info on how release-please will update those files.

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          release-type: node
          extra-files: |
            README.md
            docs/getting-started.md

Attaching files to the GitHub release

You can attach additional files, such as release artifacts, to the GitHub release that is created. The gh CLI tool, which is installed on all runners, can be used for this.

This example uses the gh tool to attach the file ./artifact/some-build-artifact.zip:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        id: release
        with:
          release-type: node
      - name: Upload Release Artifact
        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run:
          gh release upload ${{ steps.release.outputs.tag_name }} ./artifact/some-build-artifact.zip

License

Apache Version 2.0