Releaseter is a GitHub Action that helps users generate release drafts from the latest release to the latest pull request. This tool is inspired by the configuration file of release-drafter/release-drafter.

To use Releaseter, simply add it as a step in your GitHub Action workflow:

name: example
on:
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      pull-requests: write
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: JZGoopi/releaseter@v1
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

When using Releaseter, make sure to pass in the github-token and grant it pull-requests and contents write permissions.

Releaseter can be customized by creating a configuration file. By default, Releaseter will look for a .github/releaseter.yml file for configuration. To specify a different file path, use the config-path input:

      - uses: JZGoopi/releaseter@v1
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          config-path: 'apple/banana.yml'

This will cause Releaseter to look for a configuration file at .github/apple/banana.yml.

The following is an example configuration file for Releaseter:

name-template: '{{ $TIME_WORKFLOW }}'

tag-template: 'v{{ $VERSION_NEXT_PATCH }}'
tag-preRelease: ""
tag-build: ""

categories:
  - title: '🚀 Features'
    labels:
      - 'feature'
      - 'feat'
  - title: '🐛 Bug Fixes'
    labels:
      - 'fix'
      - 'bugfix'
      - 'bug'

category-other:
  show: true
  title: 'OTHERRR'

category-except-labels:
  - wont_release
  - documentation

clear-history-draft: true

time-format: '06/01/02 15:04:05'
time-location: 'Asia/Taipei'

# If you want to use the except_releases option, the tag of each item is required.
except_releases:
  - tag: 'v1.0.1'           # require
    name: '230510 00:01:51' # option

except_keyword: '#jump'

The name-template is the template for the release title. It supports several placeholders and defaults to {{ $TIME_WORKFLOW }}.

The tag-template is the template for the tag. It also supports several placeholders and defaults to v{{ $VERSION_NEXT_PATCH }}.

Both name-template and tag-template support the following placeholders:

• {{ $VERSION_NEXT_MAJOR }}: the next major version
• {{ $VERSION_NEXT_MINOR }}: the next minor version
• {{ $VERSION_NEXT_PATCH }}: the next patch version
• {{ $TIME_WORKFLOW }}: the time when the workflow is run
• {{ $EMPTY }}: an empty string
• The version numbers follow Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 as defined by GitHub, and Releaseter will use the latest tag that matches the tag-template as a baseline.

tag-preRelease and tag-build are pre-release and build tags for Semantic Versioning 2.0.0, respectively. They default to an empty string.

categories is an array of categories, each with a title and a list of labels. If a pull request's labels match any of the specified labels, its title will be added to the corresponding category. The format will be:

### Category Title
---
- PR1
- PR2

category-other controls whether to include pull requests that do not match any of the specified labels. It has two keys:

• show: A boolean value that determines whether to include unmatched pull requests. The default value is false.
• title: The title for the section that includes unmatched pull requests. The default value is 'OTHER'.

category-except-labels Specifies an array of labels. Pull requests with any of these labels will be excluded from the release notes.

clear-history-draft controls whether to clear existing drafts. It defaults to false.

time-format is the format for the time. It uses Golang's placeholder syntax and defaults to '060102 15:04:05'. The available placeholders are:

• Year:
  • 2006: four-digit year
  • 06: two-digit year
• Month:
  • 1 or 01: numeric month
  • Jan: abbreviated month name
• Day: 2 or 02
• Hour:
  • 3: 12-hour clock hour
  • 15: 24-hour clock hour
• Minute: 4 or 04
• Second:
  • 5 or 05
  • 5.000000: decimal fraction of a second
• Timezone:
  • MST: Mountain Standard Time
  • UTC: Coordinated Universal Time
  • EST: Eastern Standard Time
  • CST: Central Standard Time
  • PST: Pacific Standard Time
  • -0700: numeric timezone offset from UTC (e.g. -7 hours)
  • -07:00: numeric timezone offset from UTC with colon separator (e.g. -7:00)
• Weekday:
  • Mon: abbreviated weekday name
  • Monday: full weekday name
• AM/PM:
  • PM: uppercase AM/PM
  • pm: lowercase AM/PM

You can use these placeholders to format the time in the way that you prefer. For example, if you want to include the abbreviated weekday name and the timezone offset, you can use the following format:

time-format: 'Mon, Jan 02 2006 15:04:05 -0700'

This will produce a time string like Fri, May 07 2023 10:30:00 -0700, where Fri is the abbreviated weekday name, May 07 2023 is the date, 10:30:00 is the time, and -0700 is the timezone offset.

time-location Controls the timezone used for timestamps. The value must be a valid name from the IANA Time Zone database. The default value is 'Asia/Taipei'.

Releaseter is a tool that captures all PR content from the time of the latest release to the current trigger of the Github action. However, sometimes for various reasons, a new release is manually written before the actual version is released, causing the Releaseter to refresh the time and miss some PRs. In this case, you can use except_releases to exclude those releases and obtain the actual latest release time point you want to capture.

You don't need to write this parameter for every release you want to exclude. You only need to write the ones you want to exclude from the latest release up until the desired release. Once Releaseter finds a release that is not excluded, it will recognize that release as the latest one you want to capture.

• tag: The tag name bound to the release is a required parameter.
• name: ，
  • Optional parameters.
  • The title of the release is provided as a parameter because there is a small possibility that two releases are bound to the same tag, but you only want to delete one of them. In this case, you can use the name parameter to more accurately find the release you want to delete.

The functionality of except_keyword is similar to except_releases. The difference is that except_keyword specifies a keyword, and when the title of a release contains that keyword, the release will be skipped. The process continues until a release that is not excluded is found, and that release is used as the reference time point.

Releaseter is a helpful tool for generating release drafts from the latest release to the latest pull request. With its customizable configuration options, you can tailor it to your specific needs.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for Releaseter, please feel free to submit an issue on the GitHub repository. Your feedback helps us improve the tool for everyone!

Releaseter is licensed under the MIT License. Feel free to use, modify, and distribute this tool for any purpose.