GitHub Action - Get Latest Release

A simple GitHub Action to get the latest release from another repository.

Configuration

Example Repository - https://github.com/ophiosdev/github-action-latest-release

Inputs

Name	Description	Required	Default	Example
repository	The repository name in full	Yes	N/A	ophiosdev/github-action-latest-release
includeDrafts	Whether to include draft releases. Defaults to false.	No	false	"true"
includePreReleases	Whether to include prerelease versions. Defaults to false.	No	false	"true"
excludes	Regular expression to match and exclude release tag names.	No	(empty)	"^v0\.1"
includes	Regular expression to match and include release tag names.	No	(empty)	"^v1\."
fallbackToTags	Fall back to the latest tag when no releases are found	No	false	"true"
groupBy	Return the latest release per major, minor or patch group as a JSON array	No	(empty)	"major"
token	The GitHub token or personal access token	No	(empty)	${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

When fallbackToTags is enabled, repositories that do not publish releases - for example anthropics/claude-code - fall back to the latest tag. In that case the description and assetsUrl outputs are empty and id is the tag's commit SHA.

Using the GITHUB_TOKEN will avoid the action failing due to hitting API rate limits from the IP address of the GitHub runner your action is running on. Using a PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN is required to get the release information from a private repository. You can read about how to create a personal access token here and how to add this as a repository secret here.

Outputs

Name	Description	Example
release	The latest release version tag	v0.3.0
id	The latest release version id	12345
description	The latest release description body	This is an example release
url	API URL for the latest release	https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12345
assetsUrl	API URL for release assets	https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12345/assets

Set groupBy to major, minor or patch to return a JSON array of objects with the latest release in each selected group, sorted newest first. major groups by major, minor by major and minor, and patch by major, minor and patch. An empty value (the default) disables grouping. The release output contains the array; each object has the properties release, id, description, url and assetsUrl, while the other outputs are not set. For example, using groupBy: major with releases 2.2.5, 2.2.0, 2.0.0, 1.19.5, 1.19.1, 1.18.0 returns one release per major:

[
  {
    "release": "2.2.5",
    "id": "12345",
    "description": "Release body",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12345",
    "assetsUrl": "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12345/assets"
  },
  {
    "release": "1.19.5",
    "id": "12300",
    "description": "Release body",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12300",
    "assetsUrl": "https://api.github.com/repos/owner/repo/releases/12300/assets"
  }
]

Use the array as a dynamic matrix to run a job once for each selected version group. The include wrapper turns the returned array of objects into a GitHub Actions matrix; each object's fields are available through the matrix context.

jobs:
  get-releases:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      releases: ${{ steps.releases.outputs.release }}
    steps:
      - id: releases
        uses: ophiosdev/github-action-latest-release@master
        with:
          repository: owner/repo
          groupBy: major

  use-releases:
    needs: get-releases
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix: ${{ fromJSON(format('{{"include":{0}}}', needs.get-releases.outputs.releases)) }}
    steps:
      - name: Use this major's latest release
        env:
          RELEASE: ${{ matrix.release }}
          RELEASE_ID: ${{ matrix.id }}
        run: echo "Latest release $RELEASE (ID $RELEASE_ID)"

Usage Example

name: Build Docker Images
on: [push, repository_dispatch]

jobs:
  build:
    name: RedisTimeSeries
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - id: keydb
        uses: ophiosdev/github-action-latest-release@master
        with:
          owner: JohnSully
          repo: KeyDB
          includeDrafts: false
          includePreReleases: false
          excludes: "-beta$"
          includes: "^v.*"

      - id: timeseries
        uses: ophiosdev/github-action-latest-release@master
        with:
          repository: RedisTimeSeries/RedisTimeSeries
          includeDrafts: true
          includePreReleases: false
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - uses: docker/build-push-action@v3
        with:
          username: ${{ secrets.DOCKER_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.DOCKER_PASSWORD }}
          repository: ophiosdev/keydb-timeseries
          dockerfile: timeseries.dockerfile
          build_args: KEY_DB_VERSION=${{ steps.keydb.outputs.release }},
            REDIS_TIME_SERIES_VERSION=${{ steps.timeseries.outputs.release }}
          tags: latest, ${{ steps.keydb.outputs.release }}_${{
            steps.timeseries.outputs.release }}

To use the current repository:

with:
  repository: ${{ github.repository }}

To use authentication token:

with:
  token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

How to Rebase

The dist/ folder contains generated build artifacts. To prevent merge or rebase conflicts on those files, they are marked in .gitattributes with -diff and merge=ours. During a rebase or merge, dist/ changes are never conflicting and the version of the branch you are rebasing onto is kept automatically.

One-time setup on your machine is required for the merge=ours driver:

git config --global merge.ours.driver true

Without this configuration, Git falls back to a regular three-way merge and dist/ files can conflict again. The dist/ files of the branch you rebase onto are generated from its src/, so keeping them is always the correct choice.