Releasing versions

The release.yml makes use of semantic-release and GitLabs release-cli to automatically generate changelogs, tags and releases.

Getting started

Configuration

To make use of semantic-release you first need to create a configuration file in the root directory of your project

release.config.js

const branch = process.env.CI_COMMIT_BRANCH

const config = {
    tagFormat: "${version}",
    branches: [
        "+([0-9])?(.{+([0-9]),x}).x",
        "main",
        {
            name: "dev",
            channel: "default",
            prerelease: "beta"
        }
    ],
    plugins: [
        ["@semantic-release/commit-analyzer", {
            preset: "conventionalcommits"
        }],
        ["@semantic-release/release-notes-generator", {
            preset: "conventionalcommits"
        }],
        ["@semantic-release/gitlab", {
            labels: "Type::fix,From::Release Bot,Priority::High"
        }]
    ]
}

if (config.branches.some(it => it === branch || (it.name === branch && !it.prerelease))) {

    config.plugins.push([ "@semantic-release/changelog", {
        changelogTitle: "# Changelog\n\nAll notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. See\n[Conventional Commits](https://conventionalcommits.org) for commit guidelines."
    }]);

    config.plugins.push([ "@semantic-release/git", {
        message: "chore(release): ${nextRelease.version}\n\n${nextRelease.notes}"
    }]);
}

if(branch !== "main" && branch !== "dev") {
    config.branches.push({
        name: branch,
        channel: "default",
        prerelease: "alpha"
    })
}

module.exports = config

This will configure semantic release to:

• Use ConventionalCommits
• Create stable releases from main branch
• Create beta releases from dev branch
• Create alpha releases from any other branch
• Create specific version releases from major.x or major.minor.x branches
• Generate changelog only on stable branches

GitLab CI

When you configured semantic-release you can add the release.yml to your GitLab CI

.gitlab-ci.yml

include:
  - project: "abfelbaum/ci"
    file: "release.yml"

It is using the deploy stage.

info

If you have not configured GPG singing please refer to this section.

info

If you prefer to not use the GitLab plugin, feel free to comment it out or remove it from the configuration file.

Now, for every commit you have a manual stage named semantic-release:deploy. The following happens on trigger

1. semantic-release analyzes the commit messages and determines the next version
2. (stable branches only) semantic-release generates CHANGELOG.md
3. semantic-release creates a new tag
4. semantic-release creates a new release with the tag name as title and the commit message as description
5. semantic-release comments to every issue that was resolved in that release that it has been resolved