A maven plugin for creating GitHub releases including the attachment of assets and release notes
Setup pom.xml in project
<project>
[...]
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>com.ragedunicorn.tools.maven</groupId>
<artifactId>github-release-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>[version]</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>default-cli</id>
<configuration>
<owner>ragedunicorn</owner>
<repository>github-release-test</repository>
<server>github-oauth</server>
<tagName>v0.0.1</tagName>
<name>example-release</name>
<targetCommitish>master</targetCommitish>
<body>release description overwritten by release notes</body>
<releaseNotes>src/main/resources/release-notes-example.md</releaseNotes>
<generateReleaseNotes>false</generateReleaseNotes>
<assets>
<asset>src/main/resources/asset-plain-text-example.txt</asset>
<asset>src/main/resources/asset-zip-example.zip</asset>
</assets>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
[...]
</project>| Parameter | Required | Default Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| baseUri | false | https://api.github.com | The API endpoint - generally only used with GitHub Enterprise |
| owner | true | <> | The name of the owner of the targeted repository |
| repository | true | <> | The name of the targeted repository |
| server | false | <> | References a server configuration in your .m2 settings.xml. This is the preferred way for using the GitHub Api token |
| authToken | false | <> | Alternative of using a server configuration. The authToken can directly be placed in the plugin configuration |
| tagName | true | <> | The full name of the tag that should get used to create the release |
| name | false | [tagname] | The title of the release |
| targetCommitish | false | master | Determines where the tag is created from if the tag does not already exist. It is usually better to create a tag first |
| body | false | [commit message last commit] | The body of the release. Essentially the release notes. Text is taken as is. For easier formatting use the releaseNotes parameter |
| releaseNotes | false | <> | Overwrite body parameter. A file containing the text for the release notes |
| generateReleaseNotes | false | <> | When true, github will automatically generate release notes. If body/releaseNotes also specified, then they will be prepended to the generated notes |
| assets | false | <> | A list of files that are being uploaded and attached to the release |
| draft | false | false | True to create a draft (unpublished) release, false to create a published one |
| skip | false | false | True for skipping the plugin |
mvn github-release:github-release
Before the plugin can be used a GitHub personal access token needs to be generated.
See GitHub's documentation for how to create such a token.
Note: It is recommended to limit the token to only the permissions that are absolutely needed.
The following permissions are required:
- repo Full control of private repositories
- repo:status Access commit status
- repo_deployment Access deployment status
- public_repo Access public repositories
Once the Api token is generated, it can be provided to the plugin via:
- the
GITHUB_TOKENenvironment variable - a maven server
- a configuration property
To provide it via a maven server, store it inside the maven .m2/settings.xml.
<server>
<id>github-oauth</id>
<passphrase>token</passphrase>
</server>Make sure to use passphrase instead of usernameand password otherwise the plugin will not be able to recognize the token.
Then configure the plugin with the name of the server in the server parameter.
<configuration>
...
<server>github-oauth</server>
</configuration>It is also possible to set the token with the parameter authToken directly inside the plugin configuration. This is however not recommended because those pom files are usually getting committed into source control and potentially leaking the token.
However, using maven commandline this can be useful being able to overwrite this parameter with the -D option.
<configuration>
...
<authToken>${github.auth-token}</authToken>
</configuration>Then invoking via the command line
mvn github-release:github-release -D github.auth-token=[token]
Basic tests can be executed with:
mvn test
Tests are kept basic because for most of the functionality the GitHub backend is required.
The project contains IntelliJ run configurations that can be used for most tasks. Create a folder runConfigurations inside the .idea folder and copy over all run configurations.
github-release-maven-plugin
clean install
This project has GitHub action profiles for different Devops related work such as deployments to different places. See .github folder for details. The project is deployed to three different places. Each deployment has its own Maven profile for configuration.
.github/workflows/github_release.yaml - Creates a tag and release on GitHub
.github/workflows/github_package_release.yaml - Releases a package on GitHub
.github/workflows/ossrh_package_release.yaml - Releases a package on OSSRH (Sonatype)
All steps are required to make a full release of the plugin but can be done independently of each other. The workflows have to be manually invoked on GitHub.
The example can be used for testing of the plugin during development. It requires some manual setup on GitHub before it can be run.
- Create repository
- Update repository owner
- Setup oauth token
github-release-maven-plugin/example
clean install
Executing the plugin from a different folder won't work without also fixing the path to the release notes and any additional assets configured.
Note: The example module is deliberately not included as default module otherwise it would execute each time the project is built. Instead, the module can be considered separate and independent. It is an example of how to use the plugin, and it is helpful in testing the plugin during development.
github-release-maven-plugin/plugin
mvn checkstyle:checkstyle
github-release-maven-plugin/plugin
mvn pmd:pmd
A release can be deleted manually on the github.com website. Navigate to the release tab of the repository that you want to delete the release of.
https://github.com/[owner]/[repository]/releases
Click the title of the release that you want to delete. On the top right is a delete button.
A tag can be deleted manually or on the command line.
# delete tag locally
git tag -d [tagname]
# delete tag remotelly
git push origin :[tagname]
Navigate to the tags tab on github.com.
https://github.com/[owner]/[repository]/tags
Click the name of the tag. On the top right is a delete button.
Note: The tag will still be available locally on your machine. The next time you push the tag will show up again. If this is not desired you have to also delete the tag locally.
git tag -d [tagname]
Copyright (c) 2023 Michael Wiesendanger
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.