Adds composite actions for an automated release PR and associated tag + GitHub release when the release PR is merged. Builds on prior work in collaboration with @tchataigner (1, 2)

release-pr.yml

Major/minor release

• Triggered manually on workflow_dispatch, with major or minor as the release-type input
• Checks out the latest compatible release/<tag-prefix>-v<version> branch, e.g. release/aptos-v1.0. Note that release/ branches omit the SemVer patch version, as they are meant to persist for production and will iteratively incorporate any patches/hotfixes.
• Creates and pushes a new branch that increments the version number in the branch name only, e.g. release/aptos-v1.1
• Creates a new branch called release-pr that increments the version number in Cargo.toml, e.g. 1.0.0 to 1.1.0
• Opens a PR from release-pr to the new release/ branch. This allows for CI, PR review, and any additional commits to be added for the release. These commits should generally be cherry-picked from existing commits to the default branch.
• On merge, triggers the tag-release workflow. The release-pr branch can be safely deleted, but the release/ branch should be kept as the release source.

Patch release

• Triggered manually on workflow_dispatch, with patch as the release-type input
• Checks out the latest compatible release/<tag-prefix>-v<version> branch, e.g. release/aptos-v1.0
• Creates and pushes a new branch called patch/<tag-prefix>-v<version>.<patch-version>, e.g. patch/aptos-v1.0.1, which increments the version number in Cargo.toml accordingly
• Opens a PR from the patch/ branch to the new release/ branch. This allows for CI, PR review, and any additional commits to be added for the release.
• On merge, triggers the tag-release workflow. The patch/ branch can be safely deleted, but the release/ branch should be kept as the release source.

tag-release.yml

• Intended to trigger automatically by the release-pr caller when the release PR is merged, as it relies on the head and base branch names for tagging.
• Tags the base branch of the PR with the new release version
• Gets the changelog from the previous release tag to the current tag
• Creates a GitHub release for the new version, tag, and changelog

Downstream examples

• ci: Refactor release workflow sphinx#174
• ci: Refactor release workflow zk-light-clients#236

Successful runs

• Sphinx
  • chore: Release 3.6.0 samuelburnham/sphinx#31
  • https://github.com/samuelburnham/sphinx/releases/tag/sphinx-v3.6.0
• ZKLC
  • chore(aptos): Release 2.1.0 samuelburnham/zk-light-clients#23
  • https://github.com/samuelburnham/zk-light-clients/releases/tag/aptos-v2.1.0

TODOs

• Add unique ID to PR branch name, e.g. release-pr-- in order to allow multiple release PRs at once
• Auto-open PR to the default branch to bump the Cargo.toml version if this is the latest major.minor release
• Add an automatic labeler for PRs based on title/commit prefix. This will enable changelogs to categorize changes more accurately