softprops/action-gh-release
Action Gh Release
This is a GitHub Action that automates the creation, updating, and management of GitHub Releases. It creates draft releases from a tag or without one, then merges them into published releases on demand. The action also collects files for upload using glob patterns relative to the working directory, and reads the release body from a specified markdown file, enabling integration with external changelog generators.
The action distinguishes itself with update-or-create semantics: it checks for an existing release by tag and updates its fields if found, or creates a new release otherwise. It supports cross-repository release creation, allowing a workflow to release assets into a different GitHub repository. Additionally, it can generate release notes automatically from merged pull requests and tags, link releases to discussion threads, and preserve release metadata such as body and title unless explicitly overridden.
The action handles the full release lifecycle, including asset upload with optional subdirectory support and overwrite, file pattern validation that fails the workflow on no matches, and exposure of release URL, ID, and asset list as outputs for subsequent steps. It provides a single action for both tag-based and draft release workflows, covering release creation, update, notes management, and asset attachment.
Features
- GitHub API Integrations - Interacts with GitHub's API to create, update, and query releases using the official Octokit library.
- Release Asset Uploads - Attaches binary files and artifacts to a GitHub Release using file pattern matching and optional overwrite.
- Create-or-Update Release Configurators - Creates or updates a release with configurable tag, commit, body, and visibility settings.
- Tag-Triggered Release Automators - Triggers release creation automatically when a tag is pushed, including uploading assets and generating release notes.
- Draft Release Creators - Creates and manages draft GitHub releases, merging them into published releases on demand.
- Release Note Generation - Populates release descriptions from a file or auto-generates them from merged pull requests and tags.
- Tag-Based Release Creators - Creates a release from a pushed Git tag and optionally uploads asset files to it.
- Tag-Triggered Releases - Creates a release when a tag is pushed, uploading assets and loading release notes from a file or auto-generator.
- Update-or-Create Semantics - Checks for an existing release by tag and updates its fields if found, otherwise creates a new release.
- Pattern Match Validators - Fails the workflow if the file pattern matches no files, preventing silent errors during asset collection.
- Glob Pattern Selectors - Collects files for upload by expanding user-specified glob patterns relative to the working directory.
- Release Discussion Automation - Associates releases with discussion threads to foster community conversation around new versions.
- Cross-Repository Release Creators - Creates a GitHub Release in a repository different from the one running the workflow for distributing CI build assets.
- File-Based Loading - Sets the release body from a markdown file, integrating with external changelog generators.
- File-Based Note Loaders - Loads release body from a specified markdown file, enabling integration with external changelog generators.
- GitHub Automation Tools - Create GitHub releases.
