wipac-dev-next-version-action

GitHub Action to Compute a Project’s Next Semantic Version Powered by Commit, Tag, and Release Analysis

Overview

This GHA package determines the next semantic version (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH) based on:

• commit messages since the last version tag
• optionally ignoring changes to certain paths (e.g. assets/**, .github/**, etc.)

This action is designed for CI/CD workflows that automatically publish new releases only when needed.

How it Works

1. Finds the most recent tag matching vX.Y.Z or X.Y.Z
2. Gets the git diff since that tag
3. Inspects the new commit messages (titles) for one of the following "bump strings":
   • [major]
   • [minor]
   • [patch], [fix], or [bump]
   • [no-bump]
4. If there weren't any "bump strings"
   • checks if the changed files are all ignorable (see ignore-paths), or
   • whether to make a patch bump anyways (see force-patch-if-no-commit-token)
5. Computes the next version accordingly
6. Outputs the bumped version, or an empty string if no release is needed
   • The version number does not have a v-prefix (e.g. 1.2.5)

Inputs

Name	Required	Default	Description
force-patch-if-no-commit-token	false	"false"	If true, bumps a patch version even if no commit message contains a "bump string"
ignore-paths	false	""	Newline-delimited glob patterns (e.g. resources/**) — if all changed files match these and there's no "bump string", no release is made

Outputs

Name	Description
version	The computed semantic version (e.g. 1.2.3), or empty string if no new version is needed

Example Usage

The following is based on WIPACrepo/wipac-dev-actions-testbed's cicd.yml:

jobs:
  ...

  tag-and-release:
  # only run on main/master/default
  if: format('refs/heads/{0}', github.event.repository.default_branch) == github.ref
  needs: [
    ...
  ]
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  concurrency: tag-and-release  # prevent any possible race conditions
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0  # required to see tags and commits
        ref: ${{ github.sha }}  # lock to triggered commit ('github.ref' is dynamic)

    ...

    - uses: WIPACrepo/wipac-dev-next-version-action@...
      id: next-version
      with:
        force-patch-if-no-commit-token: ...
        ignore-paths: |
          ...

    - if: steps.next-version.outputs.version != ''
      name: Tag New Version
      run: |
        git tag v${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }}  # note: prepend 'v'
        git push origin --tags

    - if: steps.next-version.outputs.version != ''
      name: Make Release
      ...