Automating git submodules inclusion in source tarball releases

[ehaupt]

I’m the FreeBSD maintainer for the furnace port and I've been running into some repetitive tasks that could be automated to help not just me, but all maintainers.

Every time there's an update, I have to define and track each submodule's git hash used in the release manually. It’s a straightforward process but pretty time-consuming and repetitive as you can imagine.

What if we could set up a GitHub pipeline that automatically bundles all the submodules into the source tarballs for each release? This would save us the hassle of tracking submodule versions manually and ensure everything is bundled correctly and consistently.

I think this could really streamline how updates are managed and reduce the chance for errors. If you think it’s a good idea, I’d be eager to help make it happen.

[tildearrow]

If there is a way to bundle submodules with a release's source, please let me know. It will be very useful.

[ehaupt]

You could setup a GitHub CI/CD pipeline:

1. Create a new workflow file: Go to your repository on GitHub, and under the .github/workflows/ directory, create a new file, e.g., release.yml.

2. Define the workflow: Here’s an example of what the workflow could look like:

name: Create Release Tarball

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
          submodules: 'recursive'

      - name: Package Project
        run: tar -czf project-${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.tar.gz .

      - name: Upload Artifact
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
        with:
          name: project-${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.tar.gz
          path: project-${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.tar.gz

If you want to automate the creation of GitHub Releases and attach the tarball directly to the release, you can add additional steps using the actions/create-release@v1 and actions/upload-release-asset@v1 actions:

      - name: Create Release
        id: create_release
        uses: actions/create-release@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        with:
          tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
          release_name: Release ${{ github.ref }}
          draft: false
          prerelease: false

      - name: Upload Release Asset
        uses: actions/upload-release-asset@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        with:
          upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release.outputs.upload_url }}
          asset_path: ./project-${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.tar.gz
          asset_name: project-${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.tar.gz
          asset_content_type: application/gzip

This will automatically create a GitHub Release and attach the packaged tarball to it whenever a new tag is pushed. This makes it easy to manage releases and version tracking directly within GitHub.