Automate Releases With Semantic Release And Github Actions Step By

Leo Migdal

-Nov 11, 2025, 8:00 AM

automate releases with semantic release and github actions step by

One of the most common uses of GitHub Actions in Node.js projects is to automate releases: calculate the next version, tag the repository, generate release notes and publish a GitHub Release (and optionally publish... This release flow usually involves a few key steps: In this article we will set up a GitHub Actions workflow that automates this process every time you push to main. We will explain step by step what each part of the workflow does and why it is important. We want that, every time a push happens in our main branch, a set of tasks runs to automate releases using Conventional Commits: Before going into detail, it is useful to understand how a GitHub Actions workflow is structured.

The main elements are: This is the second story about GitHub Actions. This application guides how to integrate semantic-release with github action to automate software versioning, generate release notes and notify in Slack. Semantic Release is a way to automate the process of versioning and releasing software packages based on the semantic versioning specification, generating the release notes, and publishing the package. The Semantic Versioning scheme consists of three numbers, Major.Minor.Patch, and it helps developers communicate the nature of changes in a release. The key idea behind Semantic Release is to analyze the commit history in a version control system and automatically determine the next appropriate version number based on the nature of changes made since the...

For example: When developers make significant changes that may break backward compatibility, the Major version number is incremented. When new features are added in a backward-compatible manner, the Minor version number is incremented. semantic-release automates the whole package release workflow including: determining the next version number, generating the release notes, and publishing the package. This removes the immediate connection between human emotions and version numbers, strictly following the Semantic Versioning specification and communicating the impact of changes to consumers. Trust us, this will change your workflow for the better.

– egghead.io semantic-release uses the commit messages to determine the consumer impact of changes in the codebase. Following formalized conventions for commit messages, semantic-release automatically determines the next semantic version number, generates a changelog and publishes the release. By default, semantic-release uses Angular Commit Message Conventions. The commit message format can be changed with the preset or config options of the @semantic-release/commit-analyzer and @semantic-release/release-notes-generator plugins. Posted on Nov 30, 2024 • Edited on Dec 12, 2024

Automating versioning and releases is essential for maintaining a smooth and consistent development workflow. By combining Semantic Versioning (SemVer) with GitHub Actions, you can automatically manage version bumps, changelogs, and releases whenever changes are pushed to your repository. This eliminates manual tasks, improves productivity, and ensures a reliable release process. This process is a part of the broader CI/CD workflow, ensuring consistent and error-free releases. In this guide, we’ll walk through setting up a GitHub Actions workflow that automates the release process using Semantic Versioning. Before diving into the implementation, let's look at the key components we'll be using to build our automation workflow:

Semantic versioning (often abbreviated as SemVer) is a versioning scheme that aims to make it clear whether changes in your project are backward compatible, introduce breaking changes, or simply fix bugs. A typical SemVer version number looks like this: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (e.g. v1.4.8). This semantic-release publishing flow consists of using a bot for publishing releases with signed/verified commits. This setup requires creating a Github App, a user account for the bot to use, and adding the following Github Actions secrets to the repo it is being used in: Since the bot will need to make commits to bump the package version and update the change-log after a new release, it will require a user account with a GPG key so that the...

To create a new GPG key, run the following: To use an existing GPG key, run the following to list them: Run the following to display the base64-encoded secret key: As part of our transition from Azure DevOps (ADO) to GitHub, we’re focusing on automating the remaining parts of our workflow. One key area is the automatic creation of GitHub releases using GitHub Actions and the Semantic Release package. Semantic Release is a highly flexible tool that follow semantic versioning, but it’s primarily geared towards frontend projects, often requiring a package.json file.

Additionally, it lacks preconfigured GitHub tasks from official sources, though third-party options are available and describes in various online guides. To minimize dependencies on third-party tools, I’ve developed a few techniques to avoid committing frontend-specific files directly to the repository. In this article, I’ll walk you through an example pipeline for building and publishing GitHub release for a .NET project using these techniques. Here’s a refactored version of the provided steps:

Automate Releases With Semantic Release And Github Actions Step By

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– Egghead.io Semantic-release Uses The Commit Messages To Determine The

Automating Versioning And Releases Is Essential For Maintaining A Smooth