GitHub Action
Create/Update release and upload assets
An action to create a release or update it if it exists and publish assets into it. This ensures the release and tag are updated so that the release date is updated.
This is typically aimed at updating a latest or nightly release, possibly
from different workflows.
This allows the release to always be available (never deleted) while always
being up-to-date (the tag is updated to so the date shown by GitHub corresponds
to the latest asset uploaded).
Drawbacks:
-
Assets must be manually deleted if you stop building them.
-
Assets can be desynchronized when using multiple workflows if some are failing while others succeed.
This is a fork of johnwbyrd/update-release which is Archived so I can't submit changes to it.
Insert the following into the appropriate step in your .github/workflows/*.yml
file:
- name: Update release
uses: ColinPitrat/[email protected]
with:
token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
files: ./file-to-release.zip dist/other-file-to-release.exe README.md
The ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} is valid for exactly an hour from the time
your build starts. If your build requires longer than an hour to run, you will
need to create your own access token
with repo admin access, store it as a secret
in your own repository, and reference that secret token in your build:
- name: Update release
uses: ColinPitrat/[email protected]
with:
token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_PRIVATE_SECRET_TOKEN }}
asset: ./the-file-you-want-to-release.zip
This Github action allows you, to publish files created by your GitHub Actions as assets in new or existing releases. As it does so, it updates the release so that the tag and date match the last released asset.
Note: if you publish assets to the same release from different workflows, it is up to you to ensure that all the assets are updated and actually match the tag.
Because this action is written in TypeScript and executes in node.js, it runs on all Github's supported build runner platforms. These include Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu as of this writing.
Once your build has successfully completed, update-release will choose a release name for your build. Regardless of whether the ref that triggered the build is a tag or a branch, you'll get a human-friendly release name. You can of course override the default choice. If the Github release name already exists, it is reused; otherwise, it is created.
The following parameters are accepted as inputs to the update-release action.
This should be your secure Github token.
Use ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} as the parameter if your build lasts less than an hour.
If your build lasts more than an hour, you will need to create your own access token with repo admin access, store it as a secret in your own repository, and reference that secret token in your build.
This parameter is required.
The paths to files that you wish to add to the release.
Presumably, this should include at least one file that you just built.
File paths can be provided as absolute paths, or they can alternately be
relative to ${{ github.workspace }}.
This parameter is required.
The name of the release to be created. A reasonable-looking release name will
be created from the current ${{ github.ref }} if this input is not supplied.
This reasonable looking default is created by taking ${{ github.ref }},
removing the prefixes refs/, heads/, and tags/ , and then replacing any
remaining forward-slash symbols / with dashes -.
If you don't like this behavior, just override the release name here yourself.
This parameter is optional.
The name of the tag to be created. For some inexplicable reason, Github thinks that you need to have a tag corresponding to every release, which makes no sense if you're using Github to do continuous integration builds. The tag will be the same as the calculated name of the release, if this input is not supplied.
This parameter is optional.
A brief description of the tag and also of the release.
This parameter is optional.
A longer description of the release, if it is created.
This parameter is optional.
Should the release, if created, be marked as a prerelease? Such releases are generally publicly visible. Provide true or false as a parameter.
This parameter is optional.
The default setting is false.
Should the release, if created, be marked as a draft? Such releases are generally not publicly visible. Provide true or false as a parameter.
This parameter is optional.
The default setting is false.
If assets are successfully published, you will get the following outputs from the step, which you can use in later processing.
The following parameters are provided as outputs to this Github action.
The calculated local paths of the files to be uploaded into the release.
Whether the release, if created, was marked as a draft.
Whether the release, if created, was marked as a prerelease.
The name of the release.
The tag used to create the release.
To build under Debian (should be easy to adapt):
apt-get install webpack npm
npm install --save-dev typescript ts-loader v8-compile-cache
npm run bundle
This Github action was written for node.js in TypeScript, and it uses webpack in order to run ESLint before bundling. Use npm install to install all package.json dependencies of update-release, before hacking on it.
Several npm targets were added to speed along
development. The test run target builds readable dist/main.js and
dist/main.map.js files, for source-level debugging of the TypeScript. A
test-watch run target watches the src/main.ts file for changes, and lints
and recompiles it as needed. And, a bundle run target prepares a production
minified dist/main.js.
This action uses the dotenv import in order to facilitate debugging. This
import reads a .env file, if it exists, as the root of the installation, and
uses it to populate environmental variables for local testing of update-release.
A typical .env file for developing update-release, might look something like
this:
INPUT_ASSET=your-build-asset.zip
INPUT_TOKEN=00000000000000000000000000000001
GITHUB_REPOSITORY=you/your-repo
GITHUB_REF=refs/heads/master
GITHUB_WORKSPACE=/absolute/local/path/to/workspace
Using an .env file, you can perform local testing and debugging of
update-release without having to build a product first.
You should review the source code of this -- and all other! -- Github actions, to verify that they don't store, transmit, or otherwise mistreat your secure Github token.
When you provide your secure access token to any Github action, you're essentially giving the code in that action permission to do whatever it wants to your repository. Don't just hand over your security tokens to any Github actions, for which the sources are not available!
For extra peace of mind, please review src/main.ts in detail; also, feel
free to rebuild it using npm run bundle, to make sure that the minified
dist/main.js corresponds exactly to the one in the repo.
As an extra protection, src/main.ts tries to helpfully mark the token that you
provide it as a secret, so that it doesn't inadvertently sneak into any log
files.
I welcome all patches and improvements as pull requests against this repository.