Official config releases on more than just tags

[timdp]

The readme suggests that in order to only build version tags, I should use:

with:
  release: ${{ startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v') }}

However, I don't think this is correct. When I push a tag, my GitHub Action runs for both the commit to master and the tag that points to it, which expected. However, in both cases, a release occurs:

• v0.1.9 tag:

    • publishing      publisher=Github (owner: ***, project: ***, version: 0.1.9)
    • uploading       file=***-0.1.9.dmg.blockmap provider=GitHub
    • uploading       file=***-0.1.9.dmg provider=GitHub
    • creating GitHub release  reason=release doesn't exist tag=v0.1.9 version=0.1.9

• commit on master branch (different build with identical code):

    • publishing      publisher=Github (owner: ***, project: ***, version: 0.1.9)
    • uploading       file=***-0.1.9.dmg.blockmap provider=GitHub
    • uploading       file=***-0.1.9.dmg provider=GitHub
    • overwrite published file  file=***-0.1.9.dmg.blockmap reason=already exists on GitHub
    • overwrite published file  file=***-0.1.9.dmg reason=already exists on GitHub

I believe github.ref is set to the tag on which the commit is based, rather than only being equal to refs/tags/v... for the run for the actual tag.

To make matters worse, the ref also appears to be set even if the branch is ahead of the tag. I updated my build config to change the output filename, pushed that change, and it added the resulting files (with the new filename) to the last release!

I hope I'm doing something wrong but since I just copied the release config verbatim, I'm not sure where to look.

Unfortunately, this is for a private repo, but it should be easy to reproduce.

[timdp]

I've done some more investigation myself and I think I've identified the issue.

In my Action's log, I can check whether publishing is supposed to happen based on this log line that I'd missed before:

Building the Electron app…

or

Building and releasing the Electron app…

The logging happens here and tells me that something is going wrong when release is false.

Hence, my analysis above about github.ref was incorrect and the issue is in how the Action processes release = false.

Now, contrary to your Mini Diary project, I have build.publish.github in my package.json:

{
  "publish": [
    {
      "provider": "github",
      "releaseType": "release",
      "publishAutoUpdate": false
    }
  ]
}

My assumption was that this would only get used when actually publishing, but I'm now thinking that it's being interpreted as "always publish to GitHub".

However, the counterpart to the Action's --publish always is documented as --publish never. I think passing this flag will override my package.json config.

[timdp]

So I tried forking and publishing your Action to add --publish never but strangely, it didn't have any effect: it still insisted on publishing in all cases. I guess this is starting to sound more like an issue with electron-builder?

[timdp]

After many, many red herrings, I've identified a non-obvious electron-builder feature as the culprit: on CI, it always publishes.

However, --publish=never does disable that behavior. I'm not sure why my previous test didn't work.

At any rate, here's a workaround that doesn't involve updating the Action:

steps:
  - name: Set electron-builder args
    if: ${{ ! startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v') }}
    run: echo '::set-env name=EB_ARGS::--publish=never'

  - name: Build/release Electron app
    uses: samuelmeuli/action-electron-builder@v1
    with:
      github_token: ${{ secrets.github_token }}
      release: ${{ startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v') }}
      args: ${{ env.EB_ARGS }}

Closing this issue since a) it belongs with electron-builder and b) it's been resolved. Sorry for the noise.