GitHub Release Action

A composite GitHub Action that creates GitHub releases with artifacts using the gh CLI tool.

Description

Builds release artifacts via make, generates SHA256 checksums, and creates a GitHub release with all artifacts attached. Supports draft releases for pre-release versions.

Usage

- uses: ./.github/actions/github-release-action
  with:
    github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
release-targets	Make targets to build release artifacts	No	release
artifact-glob	Glob pattern for release artifacts	No	release/*
github-token	GitHub token for authentication	Yes	—
draft	Create a draft release	No	false

Example Workflow

name: Release
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: ./.github/actions/github-release-action
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          release-targets: "build package"
          artifact-glob: "dist/*"

How It Works

1. Finds a SemVer tag on HEAD (vX.Y.Z, X.Y.Z, or vX.Y.Z-devN)
2. Builds release artifacts using make <release-targets>
3. Generates SHA256 checksums for all matched artifacts
4. Creates a GitHub release with artifacts and checksums attached
5. Marks the release as draft if the tag contains -dev or draft input is true

Requirements

• Repository must have a SemVer tag on the current commit
• A Makefile with the specified release target(s)
• gh CLI (pre-installed on GitHub Actions runners)
• GITHUB_TOKEN with permissions to create releases