This action finds the most recent major and (optionally) minor release tags, and creates or moves tags to point at them.

For example, in a repository with these tags:

v0.1.0
v0.1.1
v0.1.2
v0.1.3
v0.2.0
v0.2.1
v0.2.2
v0.2.3
v0.2.4
v1.0.0
v1.0.1
v1.1.0
v1.1.1
v1.1.2

After running this action with the default settings, there will be the following additional tags:

v0.1.0
v0.1.1
v0.1.2
v0.1.3 <-- v0.1
v0.2.0
v0.2.1
v0.2.2
v0.2.3
v0.2.4 <-- v0.2 <-- v0
v1.0.0
v1.0.1 <-- v1.0
v1.1.0
v1.1.1
v1.1.2 <-- v1.1 <-- v1

The new tags point at what the existing tags point at, not at the tags themselves.

This can be used to let consumers of an action use it with a statement like

uses: username/action@v1

just like the actions provided by GitHub itself do.

If a tag exists already, it is deleted and re-created, pointing at the correct most recent release.

If there are pre-release tags and update-minor is not disabled, special -pre tags point at the most recent pre-release per minor tag:

v0.1.0
v0.1.1
v0.1.2
v0.1.3-alpha <-- v0.1-pre
v0.1.3       <-- v0.1
v0.2.0
v0.2.1
v0.2.2
v0.2.3
v0.2.4       <-- v0.2 <-- v0
v1.0.0-alpha
v1.0.0-beta  <-- v1.0-pre
v1.0.0
v1.0.1       <-- v1.0
v1.1.0
v1.1.1
v1.1.2       <-- v1.1 <-- v1
v1.2.0-alpha <-- v1.2-pre

Only -pre tags ever point at pre-releases. Ordering of pre-release tags follow the SemVer spec.

Optional If true, a special tag latest is updated to point at the most recent non-pre-release SemVer tag overall. This updates across major versions, i.e., might break a workflow. Default false.

Optional If true, the tags with the format vX.Y to point at the most recent patch version within a minor version are updated. If there are pre-release tags, tags with the format vX.Y-pre are updated to point at the most recent pre-release per minor version. Default true.

Optional If true, tags are expected to look like vX.Y.Z, and the moving tags like vX.Y/vX.Y-pre (if enabled) and vX. If false, the "v" is dropped, and tags look like X.Y.Z, X.Y/X.Y-pre, and X:

0.1.0
0.1.1
0.1.2
0.1.3 <-- 0.1
0.2.0
0.2.1
0.2.2
0.2.3
0.2.4 <-- 0.2 <-- 0
1.0.0
1.0.1 <-- 1.0
1.1.0
1.1.1
1.1.2 <-- 1.1 <-- 1

Default true.

It makes sense to run this action only when a new semantic versioning tag has been pushed.

To get all tags, the repository has to be checked out with the complete history.

The job containing the action requires write permissions on the contents scope.

The action runs on itself and the current major release is v1.

A workflow using this action might look like this:

name: Update release tags

# Only run when new semver tag is pushed
on:
  push:
    tags:
      # If prepend-v is false, switch to '[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+' (including the
      # quotes!)
      - v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+
      # To trigger on pre-releases (requires update-minor to be true), also add
      # this line, or '[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+-*' (with quotes) if prepend-v is
      # false
      - v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+-*

jobs:
  update-release-tags:
    name: Update tags
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:

      - name: Check out code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          # Get complete history
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Update major version and latest tags
        uses: bewuethr/release-tracker-action@v1
        env:
          # GitHub token to enable pushing tags
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        with:
          # Move "latest" tag
          update-latest: true
          # Don't update the vX.Y tags
          update-minor: false
          # Expect vX.Y.Z format (default)
          prepend-v: true