Automate releases with Conventional Commit Messages.

1. 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: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
           with:
             # this assumes that you have created a personal access token
             # (PAT) and configured it as a GitHub action secret named
             # `MY_RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN` (this secret name is not important).
             token: ${{ secrets.MY_RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN }}
             # this is a built-in strategy in release-please, see "Action Inputs"
             # for more options
             release-type: simple

   Specifying a release-type configuration is the most straight-forward configuration option, but allows for no further customization. For advanced configuration options, see the Advanced Configuration section

2. 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.

For any advanced configuration, please set up a manifest config and then configure this action as follows:

#...(same as above)
steps:
  - uses: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
    with:
      # this assumes that you have created a personal access token
      # (PAT) and configured it as a GitHub action secret named
      # `MY_RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN` (this secret name is not important).
      token: ${{ secrets.MY_RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN }}
      # optional. customize path to release-please-config.json
      config-file: release-please-config.json
      # optional. customize path to .release-please-manifest.json
      manifest-file: .release-please-manifest.json

release-please requires a GitHub token to access the GitHub API. You configure this token via the token configuration option.

By default, Release Please uses the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN secret. However, all resources created by release-please (release tag or release pull request) will not trigger future GitHub actions workflows, and workflows normally triggered by release.created events will also not run. From GitHub's 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.

You will want to configure a GitHub Actions secret with a Personal Access Token if you want GitHub Actions CI checks to run on Release Please PRs.

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

permissions:
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write

You may also need to set "Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests" under repository Settings > Actions > General.

For more information about permissions:

• GitHub APIs protected by contents permission
• GitHub APIs protected by pull_requests permission
• Github Actions: permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
• Github Repositories: enabling workflows for forks of private repositories
• Github Actions: assigning permissions to jobs

Release Please automates releases for the following flavors of repositories:

New types of releases can be added here.

You can also find them in the release-please repository.

Properties that are available after the action executed.

If you have a root component (path is . or unset), then the action will also output:

If you have a monorepo or a component with path different than the root (.) directory, then your outputs will have the path prefixed to the output name.

This prefix allows you to distinguish values for different releases.

If the path contains / you can access the outputs by using javascript like property access steps.release.outputs[<path>--...] e.g.:

run: npm publish --workflow packages/my-module
if: ${{ steps.release.outputs['packages/my-module--release_created'] }}

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.

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.

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.

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 target-branch:

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

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - 1.x
name: release-please
jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
        with:
          release-type: node
          # The short ref name of the branch or tag that triggered
          #  the workflow run. For example, `main` or `1.x`
          target-branch: ${{ github.ref_name }}

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: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
        id: release
        with:
          release-type: node
      # The logic below handles the npm publication:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        # 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@v4
        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.

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: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
        id: release
        with:
          release-type: node
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - 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/googleapis/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 }}

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: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
        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

If you were setting the command option, you will likely need to modify your configuration.

If you were previously configuring advanced options via GitHub action inputs, you will need to configure via the release-please manifest configuration instead. Below, you can see a mapping of the old option to the new option:

Apache Version 2.0