DevOps Study app: Automate Realese creation

Automate Release creation

Using release-please-action created by Google: 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.

We switch to main and pull –> then let’s create a new branch ci/add-release-please and let’s make a file: /.github/workflows/release-please.yaml

name: Release Please

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
        id: release
        with:
          # Will not trigger other workflows when using GITHUB_TOKEN
          # token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          token: "${{ secrets.DEVOPS_STUDY_APP }}"
          config-file: release-please-config.json
          manifest-file: .release-please-manifest.json

• name: Release Please.
• Trigger: push to main branch.
  • Only on merge to main because we don’t push to main.
• 1 job:
  • Run on Ubuntu
  • Loads from Google API the release-please-action.
  • id is release
  • Variables:
    • Need a token to access the GitHub API.
    • Create a Token to use:
      • Settings –> Developer Settings –> Personal access token –> Classic token –> [x]repository.
      • Go to the repository –> Settings –> Secrets and variables –> Actions –> New repository secret. "${{ secrets.TOKEN_NAME }}".

devops-study-app/release-please-config.json

{
  "packages": {
    "src/backend": {
      "release-type": "python",
      "package-name": "study-tracker-backend",
      "component": "backend",
      "include-component-in-tag": true,
      "changelog-path": "CHANGELOG.md",
      "extra-files": [
        {
          "type": "toml",
          "path": "uv.lock",
          "jsonpath": "$.package[?(@.name.value=='study-tracker-backend')].version"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

• Points to src/backend.
  • release type is Python.
  • package name: same name as in pyproject.toml.
  • component: it’s the backend.
  • include tag, we got many tags.
  • create a change log and giving the path.
  • extra files:
    • pyproject.toml.
    • uv.lock.

devops-study-app/release-please-manifest.json

{
  "src/backend": "0.0.o"
}

• The starting point

Commit, push, squash and merge.