Action for publishing GitHub CLI extensions

A GitHub CLI extension is any GitHub repository named gh-* that publishes a Release with precompiled binaries. This GitHub Action can be used in your extension repository to automate the creation and publishing of those binaries.

Go extensions

[!Note] With the use of actions/setup-go@v5 for Go extensions, cache is enabled by default as part of the action's v4 release. The action won’t throw an error if the cache can’t be restored or saved. The action will throw a warning message but it won’t stop a build process.

Create a workflow file at .github/workflows/release.yml:

name: release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: cli/gh-extension-precompile@v2
        with:
          go_version_file: go.mod

Then, either push a new git tag like v1.0.0 to your repository, or create a new Release and have it initialize the associated git tag.

When the release workflow finishes running, compiled binaries will be uploaded as assets to the v1.0.0 Release and your extension will be installable by users of gh extension install on supported platforms.

You can safely test out release automation by creating tags that have a - in them; for example: v2.0.0-rc.1. Such Releases will be published as prereleases and will not count as a stable release of your extension.

To maximize portability of built products, this action builds Go binaries with cgo disabled with the exception of Android build targets. To override cgo for all build targets, set the CGO_ENABLED environment variable:

- uses: cli/gh-extension-precompile@v2
  env:
    CGO_ENABLED: 1

Building for Android

gh-extension-precompile@v2 introduces a breaking change by disabling android-arm64 and android-amd64 build targets by default due to Go external linking requirements.

To enable Android build targets:

release_android must be set to true
android_sdk_version must be set to a targeted Android API level
android_ndk_home must be set to the path to Android NDK installed on Actions runner

cli/gh-extension-precompile will use pre-installed Android tools on GitHub-managed runners by default; self-hosted runners will need to install and configure this input.

For more information on Android NDK installed on GitHub-managed runners, see actions/runner-images

Customizing the build process for Go extensions

If you need to customize the build process for your Go extension, you can provide a custom build script. See Extensions written in other compiled languages below for instructions.

Extensions written in other compiled languages

If you aren't using Go for your compiled extension, or your Go extension requires customizations to the build script, you'll need to provide your own script for compiling your extension:

- uses: cli/gh-extension-precompile@v2
  with:
    build_script_override: "script/build.sh"

The build script will receive the release tag name as the first argument.

This script must produce executables in a dist directory with file names ending with: {os}-{arch}{ext}, where the extension is .exe on Windows and blank on other platforms. For example:

dist/gh-my-ext_v1.0.0_darwin-amd64
dist/gh-my-ext_v1.0.0_windows-386.exe

For valid {os}-{arch} combinations, see the output of go tool dist list with the Go version you intend to use for compiling.

Potentially useful environment variables available in your build script:

GITHUB_REPOSITORY: name of your extension repository in owner/repo format
GITHUB_TOKEN: auth token with access to GITHUB_REPOSITORY

Checksum file and signing

This action can optionally produce a checksum file for all published executables and sign it with GPG.

To enable this, make sure your repository has the secrets GPG_SECRET_KEY and GPG_PASSPHRASE set. (Tip: you can use gh secret set for this; follow the instructions here to obtain the correct secret values.) Then, configure this action like so:

name: release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - id: import_gpg
        uses: crazy-max/ghaction-import-gpg@v5
        with:
          gpg_private_key: ${{ secrets.GPG_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          passphrase: ${{ secrets.GPG_PASSPHRASE }}
      - uses: cli/gh-extension-precompile@v2
        with:
          gpg_fingerprint: ${{ steps.import_gpg.outputs.fingerprint }}

Support for Artifact Attestations

This action can optionally generate signed build provenance attestations for all published executables within ${{ github.workspace }}/dist/*.

For more information, see "Using artifact attestations to establish provenance for builds".

name: release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*"

permissions:
  contents: write
  id-token: write
  attestations: write

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: cli/gh-extension-precompile@v2
        with:
          generate_attestations: true

Authors

nate smith https://github.com/vilmibm
the GitHub CLI team https://github.com/cli

cli / gh-extension-precompile

readme