Github–Create a new release–The automated version

Yesterday I showed you how to create a new release in Github manually. This was a good starting point as it introduced the different elements of a release and the options we have. Today let us automate the process of creating a release on GitHub using GitHub Actions.

Create a new release using Github Actions

• Go to Actions inside Github and click on new workflow.

• We’ll not use an existing template but instead choose to setup the workflow ourself:

• Paste the following yaml content in the editor screen. I’ll explain it afterwards…

	name: release
	on:
	push:
	tags:
	- 'v*.*.*' # Matches tags like v1.0.0, v2.1.3, etc.
	jobs:
	build:
	runs-on: windows-latest
	permissions:
	contents: write
	steps:
	- name: Checkout repository
	uses: actions/checkout@v4
	# removed the other steps
	- name: Archive the output
	run: |
	New-Item -Path Client/out/make -ItemType Directory -Force
	Compress-Archive -Path Client/out/make -DestinationPath ${{ github.workspace }}/output.zip
	shell: pwsh
	- name: Create GitHub Release
	id: create_release
	uses: actions/create-release@v1
	env:
	GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
	with:
	tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
	release_name: ${{ github.ref }}
	body: |
	## Changes
	- List the changes in this release here.
	draft: false
	prerelease: false
	- name: Upload Release Asset
	uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
	env:
	GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
	with:
	upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release.outputs.upload_url }}
	asset_path: ${{ github.workspace }}/output.zip
	asset_name: output.zip
	asset_content_type: application/zip

view raw release.yml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Explanation of the Workflow

• name: This is the name of your workflow. You can name it something like "Release".

• on: Specifies the event that will trigger the workflow. In this case, it’s triggered by a push to a tag that matches the pattern v*.*.* (e.g., v1.0.0).

• jobs: This defines the job that will be run by the workflow.

• runs-on: Specifies the environment where the job will run. In this case, it uses the latest Windows environment.

• steps: This section lists the steps the job will take. I’ll focus on the actions specific for the release

  • actions/checkout@v4: Checks out the repository's code so that the workflow can access it.

  • actions/create-release@v1: This action is used to create the release. It uses the GITHUB_TOKEN secret to authenticate with GitHub. The release is named after the tag and includes a basic description. The draft and prerelease options can be set to true if you want the release to be a draft or a pre-release.

  • actions/upload-release-asset@v1: This action uploads assets (like compiled binaries, zipped files, etc.) to the release. The upload_url is provided by the previous step where the release was created.

Trigger the workflow

The workflow is set to trigger on a tag push that matches the pattern v*.*.*. Create a new tag and push it to trigger the workflow.

I can do this through the commandline:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

Or if you prefer a GUI, you can use for example Github Desktop:

• Go to the History tab to see the latest commits: 

• Right click on a commit and choose Create tag:

• Specify a tag name using the v*.*.* pattern

• Now we have one change that we should push to our remote origin:

The Github Actions workflow should pick up this change and start the release pipeline:

Once completed we have a brand new release available:

Nice!

Remark: We can further improve this by automatically generating the release notes but that is something I’ll leave for another post.