github-release

github release

Generates a changelog with git-cliff and publishes a GitHub release with the run's artifacts.

Usage

name: release

on:
  push:
    tags: ["v*"]

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: rewire-run/actions/github-release@v1
        with:
          files: artifacts/*

The action checks out and downloads artifacts itself, so the job needs no other steps. It does need permissions: contents: write.

Notes-only releases

A repository that builds nothing must turn the artifact download off — actions/download-artifact fails when the run produced no artifacts:

- uses: rewire-run/actions/github-release@v1
  with:
    download-artifacts: "false"

Release candidates

- uses: rewire-run/actions/github-release@v1
  with:
    files: artifacts/*
    prerelease: "true"

Pair this with validate-tag so an rc tag cannot reach the stable release workflow, and vice versa.

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
files	no	—	Assets to attach. Empty means a notes-only release.
name	no	github.ref_name	Release title.
prerelease	no	false	Mark as a pre-release.
changelog-config	no	cliff.toml	git-cliff configuration path.
checkout	no	true	Check out at full depth before generating the changelog.
download-artifacts	no	true	Download and merge the run's artifacts first.
artifact-path	no	artifacts	Directory artifacts are downloaded into.

Outputs

None.

How it works

• Checks out at fetch-depth: 0. This is not optional for a changelog: git-cliff walks history, and a shallow clone yields an empty changelog rather than an error.
• Downloads every artifact from the run with merge-multiple: true into artifact-path.
• Runs git-cliff with --latest --strip header.
• Publishes with softprops/action-gh-release, using the changelog as the body and generate_release_notes: false so GitHub's autogenerated notes do not compete with git-cliff's.

Set checkout: "false" only if the job has already prepared the workspace in a way this would clobber — and remember git-cliff still needs full history.