Skip to content

release-drafter.yml

Maintains a single standing draft release. Each time a PR is merged, it appends a changelog entry and recomputes the suggested next version from the highest-priority bump label across all included PRs.

How it works

  • Reads the PR's label to determine changelog category and version bump type.
  • Reads the PR title, number, and author.
  • If no draft release exists, creates one targeting main.
  • If a draft already exists, updates it in place.
  • The draft is never published automatically. A maintainer publishes it manually from the Releases page, which creates the git tag and triggers publish.yml.

Configuration

Each repo must have a .github/release-drafter.yml file. Copy from templates/release-drafter.yml in this repo.

The commitish: main field is required. Without it, release-drafter may attempt to target a PR merge ref when creating the first draft after a release, which GitHub rejects.

Inputs

Input Type Default Description
config-name string release-drafter.yml Config filename relative to .github/ in the calling repo

Usage

Called from merge.yml:

jobs:
  draft:
    if: github.event.pull_request.merged == true
    uses: AustralianCancerDataNetwork/cava-devops/.github/workflows/release-drafter.yml@main
    secrets: inherit

secrets: inherit is required so the workflow receives GITHUB_TOKEN from the caller.