Release Commenter

This GitHub Action automatically comments on and/or labels Issues and PRs when a fix is released for them.

How it works

Use this action in a workflow triggered by a release. It will scan commits between that and the prior release, find associated Issues and PRs, and comment on them to let people know a release has been made. Associated Issues and PRs can be directly linked to the commit or manually linked from a PR associated with the commit.

Inputs

GITHUB_TOKEN

A GitHub access token with write access to your repo's issues, such as:

• (preferred) secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN with appropriately configured permissions (the example yaml below uses this)
• A fine-grained personal access token with "Read and Write access to issues and pull requests" for the appropriate repository
• A legacy personal access token with repo scope

comment-template (optional)

Override the comment posted on Issues and PRs. Set to the empty string to disable commenting. Several variables strings will be automatically replaced:

• {release_link} - a markdown link to the release
• {release_name} - the release's name
• {release_tag} - the release's tag

label-template (optional)

Add the given label. Multiple labels can be separated by commas. Several variable strings will be automatically replaced:

• {release_name} - the release's name
• {release_tag} - the release's tag

skip-label (optional)

Skip processing if any of the given labels are present. Same processing rules as label-template. Default is "dependencies".

Example

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

permissions: # required if repository sets restricted permissions for token, see https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-for-github-actions/security-guides/automatic-token-authentication#permissions-for-the-github_token
  issues: write # required if active on issues
  pull-requests: write # required if active on pull requests

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: apexskier/github-release-commenter@v1
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          comment-template: |
            Release {release_link} addresses this.

Known limitations

These are some known limitations of this action. I'd like to try to address them in the future.

• Non-linear releases aren't supported. For example, releasing a patch to a prior major release after a new major release has been bumped.
• Non-sequential releases aren't supported. For example, if you release multiple prereleases between two official releases, this will only create a comment for the first prerelease in which a fix is released, not the final release.
• The first release for a project will be ignored. This is intentional, as the use case is unlikely. Most projects will either have several alphas that don't need release comments, or won't use issues/PRs for the first commit.
• If a large number of things are commented on, you may see the error Error: You have triggered an abuse detection mechanism. Please wait a few minutes before you try again.. Consider using the skip-label input to reduce your load on the GitHub API.

Versions

Workflows will automatically update the tags v1 and latest, allowing you to reference one of those instead of locking to a specific release.