Add version outputs for created PRs

[uriklar]

TL;DR

I'm trying to use the action outputs in a slack notification message but for some reason they are blank

Expected behavior

steps.release.outputs.pr has the value of the created PR

Observed behavior

Value is empty

Action YAML

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
name: release-please
env:
  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SCOPED_TOKEN }}
jobs:
  release-please:
    if: ${{ !contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'autorelease') }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Create Release PR
        uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
        id: release
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.SCOPED_TOKEN }}
          release-type: node
          package-name: "MY_PACKAGE_NAME"
          labels: autorelease

      - name: Slack Notification
        uses: rtCamp/action-slack-notify@v2
        env:
          SLACK_WEBHOOK: ${{ secrets.SLACK_WEBHOOK }}
          SLACK_CHANNEL: SLACK_CHANNEL
          SLACK_MESSAGE: 'Release PR has been created for version : ${{ steps.release.outputs.major }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.minor }}.${{ steps.release.outputs.patch }}. See it here: https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/pull/${{ steps.release.outputs.pr_number }}'
          MSG_MINIMAL: true

Log output

28s
Run google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3
✔ Looking for latest release on branch: master with prefix: PREFIX
❯ Fetching merge commits on branch master with cursor: undefined
❯ Found latest release pull request: 506 version: 11.4.0
❯ Fetching releases with cursor undefined
✔ Building releases
✔ Building strategies by path
❯ .: node
✔ Looking for latest release on branch: master with prefix: PREFIX
❯ Fetching merge commits on branch master with cursor: undefined
❯ Found latest release pull request: 506 version: 11.4.0
❯ Fetching releases with cursor undefined
✔ Building pull requests
✔ Building strategies by path
❯ .: node
✔ Collecting release commit SHAs
❯ release search depth: 400
❯ Fetching releases with cursor undefined
❯ Found release for path ., v11.4.0
❯ release for path: ., version: 11.4.0, sha: SHA
✔ Collecting commits since all latest releases
❯ commit search depth: 500
✔ Splitting 7 commits by path
✔ Building candidate release pull request for path: .
❯ type: node
❯ targetBranch: master
❯ commit could not be parsed: feb6ca287d8c960881e5eea49477396e2a311416 remove comment
❯ commits: 6
✔ Considering: 6 commits
❯ component: 
❯ pull request title pattern: undefined
✔ Looking for open release pull requests
✔ found 0 open release pull requests.
✔ Looking for snoozed release pull requests
✔ found 0 snoozed release pull requests.
❯ Fetching package-lock.json from branch master
✔ updating from 11.4.0 to 11.4.1
❯ Fetching npm-shrinkwrap.json from branch master
⚠ file npm-shrinkwrap.json did not exist
⚠ file samples/package.json did not exist
❯ Fetching samples/package.json from branch master
❯ Fetching CHANGELOG.md from branch master
❯ Fetching package.json from branch master
✔ updating from 11.4.0 to 11.4.1
❯ Fetching .release-please-manifest.json from branch master
⚠ file .release-please-manifest.json did not exist
✔ Starting GitHub PR workflow...
✔ Successfully found branch HEAD sha "1b92cc5bed65da52de8ce9157bf96e405e56d2f3".
✔ Skipping branch creation step...
✔ Got the latest commit tree
✔ Successfully created a tree with the desired changes with SHA 8e0f0a5dea23862bab2ff3902ae2d4c233de500d
✔ Successfully created commit. See commit at https://api.github.com/
✔ Updating reference to fb76150d735a729cb2373889d4be2d9584e9461c
✔ Successfully updated reference fb76150d735a729cb2373889d4be2d9584e9461c
✔ Successfully opened pull request available at url: 
✔ Successfully opened pull request: 510.
✔ Successfully added labels autorelease to issue: 510
1s
Run rtCamp/action-slack-notify@v2
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ***
    SLACK_WEBHOOK: ***
    SLACK_CHANNEL: ***
    SLACK_COLOR: good
    SLACK_MESSAGE: Release PR has been created for version : ... See it here: https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/pull/
    MSG_MINIMAL: true

Additional information

No response

[chrislemke]

I started using it yesterday and have/had the same problem.

In conventionalcommits summary it said:

types other than fix: and feat: are allowed, for example @commitlint/config-conventional (based on the Angular convention) recommends build:, chore:, ci:, docs:, style:, refactor:, perf:, test:, and others.

Some of those types (e.g. ci:) did not appear in my changelog. But after changing: z changelog-types everything works fine.

[ygueguin]

Hi @uriklar, i get the same problem, if i don't miss, the pr_number output is populate only once you validate the PR. To catch the pr number before validate the PR, i used this :

echo ${{ toJSON(steps.release.outputs.pr) }} >> pr.json
echo "pr_number=$(jq -r '.number' pr.json)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

[kurtisvg]

Can confirm that the outputs are unset (even the ones that shouldn't be) when release-please doesn't do a release.

It would be much nicer for debugging actions if these outputs are always set to some value -- even if it's "none" or "". At least then they outputs will show in the debug logs, which makes it much easier to tell what's going on.

[yshrsmz]

It would be nice if major/minor/patch values are available even if outputs.release_created is false.

I'd like to create & publish a snapshot release with that value.

[dsiguero]

Can't see any reason why outputs.major, outputs.minor and outputs.patch aren't set when the release is not created, if they're used for the PR title (so they're computed anyway).

[bcoe]

@dsiguero would you like to send a patch that sets the outputs when a release is not created? My one concern is that perhaps people are using these outputs to decide whether the next step in the action should execute, we should make this a breaking change IMO.

[chingor13]

A release pull request could contain several components that have different versions. It might be possible to expose more data in the output of the release PRs created.

[intrepidvaillant]

It would be nice if major/minor/patch values are available even if outputs.release_created is false.

I'd like to create & publish a snapshot release with that value.

I have a workaround for that. It is not pretty but it do work.

jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      tag: ${{ steps.extract_version.outputs.version }}
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v4
        id: release-please
        with:
          release-type: <your_release_type>
          token: <your_pat_token>
      - name: Extract version
        id: extract_version
        run: |
          VERSION=$(echo '${{ steps.release-please.outputs.pr }}' | jq -r '.title' | grep -oP '(?<=release )\d+\.\d+\.\d+')
          echo "version=$VERSION" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

      - name: Use Version
        run: echo "The new version is ${{ steps.extract_version.outputs.version }}"

[nishkarsh-beamery]

What's the status on this? It would be useful to have this feature, in my case, I would like to tag container images with these version values and then later deploy the selected version when the release PR is merged.