:robot: semantic-release-node-prep

Shareable configuration for automated node package versioning with changelog generation using semantic-release, tailored for OSS projects.

Release workflow

• Analyzes commits following the conventional commits spec
  • Follows the default angular preset
  • Includes chore, docs, refactor and style changes in PATCH releases
• Generates or updates changelog
• Bumps the version in package.json
• Commits the changes made and creates a git tag with the release version

Install

1. Install semantic-release

npm install --save-dev semantic-release

2. Install this package:

npm install --save-dev semantic-release-node-prep

3. Add a semantic release config in your package.json file:

{
  "extends": "semantic-release-node-prep",
  "branch": "main"
}

Usage

Once everything is installed, you can test your config with a dry run:

npx semantic-release --dry-run

What you'll probably want to do next is configure a GitHub workflow to run your tests and publish new versions automatically.

Here's a example workflow configuration that runs your tests and publishes a new version for new commits on main branch:

name: release
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  test:
    name: Run tests
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '>=14'
      - run: |
          npm ci
          npm test
        env:
          CI: true

  release:
    name: Publish release
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '>=14'
      - run: |
          npm ci
          npm build --if-present
        env:
          CI: true
      - run: npx semantic-release
        if: success()
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Note on GitHub protected branches

If you're releasing a GitHub protected branch you need to change the git commiter to an owner/admin and allow repo admins to bypass the branch protection (make sure "include administrators" is disabled in the branch protection rules.)

If your repo is under an organisation, you can create a bot account and give it admin rights on the repo. If your repo is under a personal account, you have no choice to make the repo owner the commiter for the release.

Either way, you have to create a GitHub personal access token for the commiter account and give it the "repo" access rights. Then set it to the GH_TOKEN secret in your GitHub repository.

Finally, make these two changes to your workflow:

...
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      # Add this to commit with a different account than the one
      # used for checkout
      with:
        persist-credentials: false
...
    - run: npx semantic-release
      if: success()
      env:
        # Change the secret used here
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}
        # Add this to set the new commiter for the release
        GIT_COMMITTER_NAME: admin-or-owner
        GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL: [email protected]

Note: GitHub secrets not shared with forks and pull requests, so no one that doesn't have write access to your repo can use of them.

Related

If you're looking for a way to automate the release of a Node.js package to NPM and GitHub, check out semantic-release-npm-github.