Quick tutorial: How to add a release GitHub workflow

As developers, we often find ourselves repeating manual steps when releasing new versions of our software. GitHub Actions allows us to automate these tasks, ensuring consistency and saving valuable time. Whether you’re deploying a web app, a library, or any other project, setting up a release workflow can significantly improve your development process.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the tutorial, make sure you have the following:

1. GitHub Repository: You’ll need a GitHub repository where you want to set up the release workflow.
2. Basic YAML Knowledge: We’ll be writing our workflow in YAML format, so a basic understanding of YAML syntax will be helpful.

Creating a Simple Release Workflow

Step 1: Understanding GitHub Actions Workflows

GitHub Actions workflows consist of triggers, jobs, and steps:

• Triggers: Events that initiate a workflow (e.g., pushes to specific branches).
• Jobs: Units of work within a workflow.
• Steps: Individual actions performed within a job.

Step 2: Creating a Workflow File

1. Go to your GitHub repository.
2. Navigate to the .github/workflows directory.
3. Create a new YAML file (e.g., release.yml).

Step 3: Define Your Workflow

Here’s a basic example of a release workflow:

name: Create release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  release:
    name: Release pushed tag
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - name: Create release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          tag: ${{ github.ref_name }}
        run: |
          gh release create "$tag" \
              --repo="$GITHUB_REPOSITORY" \
              --title="${tag#v}" \
              --generate-notes

This GitHub workflow, named "Create release," triggers whenever a tag starting with "v" is pushed to the repository, granting write access to repository contents.
It defines a job named "release" that runs on an Ubuntu 22.04 virtual machine. This job executes steps to create a release using the GitHub CLI (gh).
The necessary environment variables, GITHUB_TOKEN, and tag are set automatically from GitHub so no need to worry about that.
The gh release create command is used to create a release, specifying the tag name, repository, and title (stripping the initial "v"), and generating release notes automatically.

Step 4: How to push your first release:

To demonstrate, you can create a tag locally using git tag v1.0.0 and then push the tag to GitHub with git push origin v1.0.0.
This would trigger the workflow, resulting in the creation of a release with the specified tag and release notes on the GitHub repository's Releases page.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve set up a simple release workflow using GitHub Actions. Remember to customize it based on your project’s specific requirements. Explore more advanced features and integrations to supercharge your development process.

Happy automating! 🚀