GitFlow Actions

A way to automate the gitflow release process using github actions for GitHub repositories. More specifically the existing approach can be applied on repositories with branch protection rules where an approved Pull Request is required in order to merge a branch into either the develop or master branch. It all starts with a version defined in the manifest file package.json.

To use this you need:

• A GitHub account/bot that will approve the Pull Requests created by the actions. Add the Personal Access Token (PAT) for this account as a secret in the settings of your repository. (In this example it is BOT_TOKEN.

There are many ways to go with version bumping. For this one I chose to use the yarn package manager. Three identical GitHub Actions are created, each of them releases the corresponding version type:

• Major
• Minor
• Patch

In the event when merging to the master branch fails (either we have merge conflicts or CI fails for some reason) we manually fix it. Afterwards there is a second Action that is triggered upon merging in the master branch picks up from there to do the rest.

For more information regarding the GitFlow branching model visit the following links:

https://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows/gitflow-workflow