Setup Release Please

Setup release-please

Sets up release-please via release-please-action. How it works, release types, config options, first-run bootstrapping: the official READMEs — consult them instead of guessing.

Steps

1. Already set up? grep -rl release-please .github/workflows/ 2>/dev/null — a hit: skip to step 3, verify settings only.

2. Install the workflow at .github/workflows/release.yml. Substitute the trunk (git symbolic-ref --short refs/remotes/origin/HEAD | sed 's|^origin/||', fallback main); release type node when package.json exists, else simple:

   name: Release
   
   on:
     push:
       branches: [main]
   
   concurrency:
     group: release
     cancel-in-progress: false
   
   permissions:
     contents: write
     pull-requests: write
   
   jobs:
     release:
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
         - uses: googleapis/release-please-action@v5
           id: release
           with:
             release-type: node
         # Per-project deploy steps go below, each gated on:
         #   if: steps.release.outputs.release_created == 'true'
   

3. Repo merge settings:

   gh api -X PATCH repos/{owner}/{repo} \
     -F delete_branch_on_merge=true \
     -F allow_squash_merge=true \
     -F allow_merge_commit=true
   

4. Let Actions open PRs (release-please fails with "GitHub Actions is not permitted to create or approve pull requests" otherwise):

   gh api -X PUT repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/permissions/workflow \
     -f default_workflow_permissions=write \
     -F can_approve_pull_request_reviews=true
   

5. Commit (ci: add release-please workflow) and confirm the run is green once it lands on the trunk (gh run watch).

Our quirks vs the official setup

• The deploy half stays per-project, hooked after the release-please step and gated on release_created — full migrate-and-deploy example: admin-laicadev/colin .github/workflows/release.yml.
• The merge settings in step 3 are what git-shortcuts relies on: m expects delete_branch_on_merge; ticket branches squash, epic/* → trunk uses merge commits so release-please sees the per-ticket conventional commits.
• --release (git-shortcuts) is what merges the release PR, found by the autorelease: pending label.
• Release PRs opened with GITHUB_TOKEN trigger no other workflows (official known limitation) → branch protection requiring checks blocks --release; exempt the release PR or drive the action with an App/PAT token.
• Conventional commits are already enforced fleet-wide by the workflow bundle's conventional-commits rule.