Build Workflow: Revert version bump if build job fails

[ockham]

Description

In our plugin build workflow, which, when manually triggered, also contains a version bump step, and a step to create a release draft with the plugin build attached as an asset, the build step sometimes fails (e.g. because of npm flakiness) (see e.g.).

It's natural for people to try and re-trigger the step. However, this is also bound to fail, since at that point, the release branch has already been created, and the plugin version has already been bumped (see e.g.).

To prevent this, we can add another job to the workflow that upon build failure, reverts the version bump commit, and, if necessary, also deletes the release branch.

See this thread for more background, and potential alternative approaches: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/33105/files#r664591278

How has this been tested?

You'd basically need to fork the repo, force-push this branch to the fork's trunk, and add a commit that makes the build job reliably fail. Something like

git push ockham update/build-workflow-revert-version-bump-if-build-fails:trunk -f

and

--- a/.github/workflows/build-plugin-zip.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build-plugin-zip.yml
@@ -169,6 +169,9 @@ jobs:
               with:
                   ref: ${{ needs.bump-version.outputs.release_branch || github.ref }}
 
+            - name: Fail
+              run: exit 1
+
             - name: Use desired version of NodeJS
               uses: actions/setup-node@38d90ce44d5275ad62cc48384b3d8a58c500bb5f # v2.2.2
               with:

For your convenience, I've done that on my fork 😬

Here's a test run for a stable release: https://github.com/ockham/gutenberg/actions/runs/1015794749.
The release/11.0 branch contains both the version bump commit (11.0.1), and the revert: https://github.com/ockham/gutenberg/commits/release/11.0
(Same for trunk: https://github.com/ockham/gutenberg/commits/trunk -- the commits are below the ones for the RC test.)

Here's a test run for an rc release: https://github.com/ockham/gutenberg/actions/runs/1015804736
The release/11.1 branch was deleted after the build step failed; the version bump commit and revert for 11.1.0-rc.1 are however present on trunk: https://github.com/ockham/gutenberg/commits/trunk

[desrosj]

I think this looks like an OK addition.

One scenario that occurred to me (which may never actually happen). If a PR is merged after the version bump occurs, and either one fails, could it result in an incorrectly deleted branch?

[desrosj]

Would this ever cause problems after the first RC? For example, a failure is encountered when bumping to RC2, 3, 4 etc.

[ockham]

It's been a while since I've worked on this, but doesn't the criterion on the following line rule that out? I.e. verify that the previous version wasn't an RC.

[ockham]

One scenario that occurred to me (which may never actually happen). If a PR is merged after the version bump occurs, and either one fails, could it result in an incorrectly deleted branch?

I'm not totally sure I'm reading you correctly, but the deletion step is referring to the release branch by its name, so I think we should be safe here?

[ockham]

Rebased.

[ockham]

Gave this another round of testing on my personal fork. I'm reasonably confident that this is working as it should be, so I'll go ahead and merge it 🙂