Run a Gradle publish on creation of tag or release.

[stewartbryson]

TL;DR

I have 2 action YAML files... one for release-please called release-please.yml and one for the Gradle build, test and publish called gradle-build.yml. gradle-build.yml runs on pull requests successfully, but I also want it to run on the creation of either the release or the tag associated with it (I don't care which one). I have tried an on statement for tag creation, release creation, and release publication, but it never triggers. I assume there is something in release-please that prohibits the releases it creates from triggering actions.

Expected behavior

I expect that a created tag, a created release, or a published release would trigger my additional action YAML workflow.

Observed behavior

No additional workflow is executed after release-please creates the release.

Action YAML

# First YAML file called gradle.build.yml

# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions

name: Build

# Controls when the workflow will run
on:
  # Triggers the workflow on push or pull request events but only for the main branch
  # I have tried tag:created release:created as well.
  release:
    types:
      - published
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "build"
  build:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Environment variables for every step
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}}


    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
      # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
      - name: checkout-repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          fetch-depth: '0' # will fetch the entire history

      - id: auth
        uses: google-github-actions/[email protected]
        with:
          credentials_json: ${{ secrets.gcp_dev }}

      # Apply snapshot on PR merges
      - name: gradle-apply-snapshot
        if: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' }}
        uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@v2
        with:
          arguments: applySnapshot -S

      # Build and publish artifacts
      # Publish to snapshot or release depending on version number
      - name: gradle-build
        uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@v2
        with:
          arguments: build integration buildDashboard publish -S

      # Eventually other steps for publishing docs, etc.

# Second YAML file called release-please.yml

# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions

name: Release

# Controls when the workflow will run
on:
  # Only pushes to main
  push:
    branches:
      - main

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  release:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
      # Release Please
      - name: release-please
        uses: GoogleCloudPlatform/release-please-action@v2
        with:
          release-type: simple
          package-name: synthesis-lib
          version-file: version.txt

Additional information

Perhaps there is a better way to orchestrate the publication of Java libs upon creation of the release, but this seemed like the right way. Perhaps trying to the the release-please release PR merge to execute the Java lib publication is reasonable.

[bcoe]

I believe you are bumping into a limitation of using the default GITHUB_TOKEN, see:

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/events-that-trigger-workflows#triggering-new-workflows-using-a-personal-access-token

If you create an alternate token, this should address the issue; let me know if this does the trick.

[stewartbryson]

Thanks @bcoe... I appreciate this. Let me ask this... is there another, more preferred way to do a "publish" step? This is the publishing of Java libs upon release? It needs to happen after the new release, because Gradle uses the new version number when publishing the library.

[axieum]

I'm using the Manifest release strategy, but this is how I did the uploading of assets to a release after release-please runs.

Hopefully, this helps you and any passerby.

# ...

    steps:
      - name: 🙌 Prepare release
        id: release-please
        uses: GoogleCloudPlatform/release-please-action@v3
        with:
          command: manifest
          config-file: .github/release-please.json
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      # ...

      - name: 📢 Publish new release
        if: ${{ steps.release-please.outputs.release_created }}
        run: ./gradlew publish

      - name: 📦 Upload artifacts
        if: ${{ steps.release-please.outputs.release_created }}
        uses: svenstaro/upload-release-action@v2
        with:
          tag: ${{ steps.release-please.outputs.tag_name }}
          file: '**/build/libs/*'
          file_glob: true
          overwrite: true
          repo_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

[tmatsuo]

It looks like a solution is posted.