How to versioning releases in Github Actions - github

Question

Is there a way to publish releases on GitHub using Actions with custom version numbers? Currently, I'm using github.run_number provided by GitHub Context and as mentioned in the docs:
github.run_number (string) - A unique number for each run
of a particular workflow in a repository. This number begins
at 1 for the workflow's first run, and increments with each new run.
Not every run of my workflow creates a release (e.g. when a workflow fails), resulting in inconsistent version numbers. I've created a demo repository and as you can see, the release numbers are ...38,39,40,47,49. I didn't find any solution for this in GitHub Actions Docs.
I want to have consistent incrementally growing version numbers or even a v.x.x structure if it's possible.
My complete workflow can be found here, my release-project job is:
...previous jobs: build, test, deploy...
release-project:
name: Release project
needs: deploy-project
...
- name: Create release
id: create_release_id
uses: actions/create-release#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
tag_name: ${{ github.run_number }}
release_name: Release ${{ github.run_number }}
- name: Upload release asset
id: upload-release-asset
uses: actions/upload-release-asset#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release_id.outputs.upload_url }}
asset_path: ./project.zip
asset_name: project-v${{ github.run_number }}.zip
asset_content_type: application/zip

Answer 1

I would suggest not relying on run_number and using the latest tag from the repo to generate the next version based on it. For example, you can use the Get Latest Tag, Next SemVers, and Next Monotonic Release version GH Actions.
Semantic versioning workflow:
...
jobs:
test-next-release:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout
uses: actions/checkout#v3
with:
fetch-depth: 0 # required for github-action-get-previous-tag
- name: Get previous tag
id: previoustag
uses: 'WyriHaximus/github-action-get-previous-tag#v1'
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
- name: Get next minor version
id: semver
uses: 'WyriHaximus/github-action-next-semvers#v1'
with:
version: ${{ steps.previoustag.outputs.tag }}
- name: Create release
id: create_release_id
uses: actions/create-release#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
tag_name: ${{ steps.semver.outputs.patch }}
release_name: Release ${{ steps.semver.outputs.patch }}
Consecutive numbers versioning workflow:
...
jobs:
test-next-release-custom:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout
uses: actions/checkout#v3
with:
fetch-depth: 0 # required for github-action-get-previous-tag
- name: Get Previous tag
id: previoustag
uses: 'WyriHaximus/github-action-get-previous-tag#v1'
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
- name: Get next version
id: next
uses: 'WyriHaximus/github-action-next-release-version#1.0.0'
with:
version: ${{ steps.previoustag.outputs.tag }}
- name: Create release
id: create_release_id
uses: actions/create-release#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
tag_name: ${{ steps.next.outputs.version }}
release_name: Release ${{ steps.next.outputs.version }}