GitHub Action: Increment Version

action.yml

name: 🔄 Increment Version
description: Increment the repository version number

inputs:
  namespace:
    description: "Use to create a named sub-version. This value will be prepended to tags created for this version."
    required: false
  channel:
    description: "Denote the channel or pre-release version, i.e. alpha, beta, rc, etc."
    required: false
  metadata:
    description: "Metadata for the current version. This value will be ignored when looking for the latest version."
    required: false
  part:
    description: "The part of the version to increment (major, minor, patch or none)."
    required: true
    default: ${{ github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && 'minor' || 'patch' }}
  change-path:
    description: >-
      Path to check for changes. If any changes are detected in the path the 'changed' 
      output will true. Enter multiple paths separated by spaces.
    required: false
  create-tag:
    description: "Create a tag for the new version"
    required: false
    default: "false"

outputs:
  namespace:
    description: "The namespace"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.namespace }}
  version:
    description: "The version number in Semantic Versioning format without namespace or metadata"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.version }}
  version-tag:
    description: "The version tag"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.version-tag }}
  major:
    description: "Current major number"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.major }}
  minor:
    description: "Current minor number"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.minor }}
  patch:
    description: "Current patch number"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.patch }}
  channel:
    description: "The channel or pre-release version"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.channel }}
  metadata:
    description: "metadata for the current version"
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.metadata }}
  changed:
    description: >-
      Indicates whether there was a change since the last version if 
      change-path was specified. If no change-path was specified 
      this value will always be true since the entire repo is considered.
    value: ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.changed }}

runs:
  using: "composite"
  steps:
    - name: 🔄 Get Latest Version Tag
      id: versioning
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
        script: |
          const { execSync } = require('child_process');

          // Define the command to list and sort tags
          const listTagsCommand = "git tag --list --sort=-version:refname";

          // Execute the command to get the sorted tags
          const tagsOutput = execSync(listTagsCommand).toString();

          // Define the regex pattern for Semantic Versioning
          const tagRegEx = /^(?:([a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9-_.]*)\@)?v(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)(?:-((?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*)(?:\.(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*))*))?(?:\+([0-9a-zA-Z-]+(?:\.[0-9a-zA-Z-]+)*))?$/;

          // Filter the tags based on the regex
          let versionTags = tagsOutput.split('\n').filter(tag => tagRegEx.test(tag));

          // Log the filtered tags
          console.log("Version tags:");
          console.log(versionTags);

          const namespace = "${{ inputs.namespace }}";
          const channel = "${{ inputs.channel }}";
          const metadata = "${{ inputs.metadata }}";
          let latestTag;
          let major = 0;
          let minor = 0;
          let patch = 0;

          // Iterate the tags until we find the latest version that matches our namespace and channel
          for (let i = 0; i < versionTags.length; i++) {
            const tag = versionTags[i];
            const match = tag.match(tagRegEx);
            
            const tagNamespace = match[1] ?? "";
            const tagChannel = match[5] ?? "";
            if (tagNamespace === namespace && tagChannel === channel) {
              // Found a matching tag
              latestTag = tag;
              major = parseInt(match[2]);
              minor = parseInt(match[3]);
              patch = parseInt(match[4]);
              break;
            }
          }

          if (!latestTag) {
            console.log("No version tag found.");
          }

          // Pick the first tag
          const part = "${{ inputs.part }}";
          let changed;
          if (["major", "minor", "patch"].includes(part)) {
            // Test if anything has changed since the last version
            const changePaths = `${{ inputs.change-path }}`.replaceAll(/[\s\r\n]+/gm, " ").trim();
            changed = true;
            if (changePaths && latestTag) {
              const diffCommand = `git diff --name-only "${latestTag}" "HEAD" -- ${changePaths}`;
              const diffOutput = execSync(diffCommand).toString();
              changed = diffOutput.trim() !== "";
              if (changed) {
                console.log("Source changes detected:");
                console.log(diffOutput);
              } else {
                console.log("No source changes detected.");
              }
            }

            // Increment the version (if needed)
            if (changed) {
              console.log("Incrementing version.");
              if (part === "major") {
                major = major + 1;
                minor = 0;
                patch = 0;
              } else if (part === "minor") {
                minor = minor + 1;
                patch = 0;
              } else if (part === "patch") {
                patch = patch + 1;
              }
            } 
            else {
              console.log("No changes detected. Skipping version increment.");
            }
          }
          else {
            console.log("Skipping version increment.");
            changed = false;
          }

          // Build the new version string
          const version = `${major}.${minor}.${patch}` + (channel ? `-${channel}` : "");
          const versionTag = (namespace ? `${namespace}@` : "") + `v${version}` + (metadata ? `+${metadata}` : "");
          console.log(`Namespace: ${namespace}`);
          console.log(`Version: ${version}`);
          console.log(`Version Tag: ${versionTag}`);
          console.log(`Major: ${major}`);
          console.log(`Minor: ${minor}`);
          console.log(`Patch: ${patch}`);
          console.log(`Channel: ${channel}`);
          console.log(`Metadata: ${metadata}`);

          core.setOutput("namespace", namespace);
          core.setOutput("version", version);
          core.setOutput("version-tag", versionTag);
          core.setOutput("major", major);
          core.setOutput("minor", minor);
          core.setOutput("patch", patch);
          core.setOutput("channel", channel);
          core.setOutput("metadata", metadata);
          core.setOutput("changed", changed);

          return versionTag;

    # Create a tag for the new version
    - name: 🏷️ Creating Tag
      if: ${{ inputs.create-tag == 'true' && steps.versioning.outputs.changed == 'true' }}
      run: |
        git config --global user.email "${{ github.actor }}@users.noreply.github.com"
        git config --global user.name "${{ github.actor }}"
        git tag -a ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.version-tag }} -m "Version ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.version }} on ${{ github.ref_name }}"
        git push origin ${{ steps.versioning.outputs.version-tag }}
      shell: bash

Simple, reusable GitHub Action to automatically increment an application version and tag the git repository accordingly.

Git tag syntax:

[{namespace}@]v{major}.{minor}.{patch}[-{channel}][+{metadata}]

Part	Description	Example Value
namespace	Manage multiple separate versions in the same repository	app
major	Major version must be incremented if any backward incompatible changes are introduced	1
minor	Minor version must be incremented if new, backward compatible functionality is introduced	0
patch	Patch version must be incremented if only backward compatible bug fixes are introduced	0
channel	Distribution channel or pre-release name	alpha
metadata	Build metadata is ignored when determining version precedence	20240310

Valid examples are:

v1.0.0
v1.0.0-alpha
[email protected]
[email protected]+dev
v1.0.0+20240310

This action also facilitates a branching scheme as the one below:

gitGraph:
  checkout main
  commit tag: "v1.0.0"
  commit tag: "v1.1.0"
  commit tag: "v1.2.0"

  checkout main
  branch release/qa
  commit tag: "v1.2.1+qa"

  checkout main
  branch release/demo
  commit tag: "v1.2.1+demo"

  checkout main
  commit tag: "v1.3.0"

  checkout release/qa
  commit tag: "v1.2.2+qa"
  commit tag: "v1.2.3+qa"

  checkout release/demo
  commit tag: "v1.2.2+demo"

  checkout release/qa
  merge main
  commit tag: "v1.3.1+qa"

  checkout main
  commit tag: "v1.4.0"
  commit tag: "v1.5.0"

Loading

how can you use this?