GitHub Action: Library Version Validation, Pull Request Automation, and Release Creation

Overview

This GitHub Action streamlines version management, pull request validation, and release creation for Arduino library repositories. It ensures that library versions adhere to semantic versioning, automates pull request merges, and creates GitHub releases for validated versions.

The action validates version progression, checks dependencies, enforces code style rules, and automates the merging and release process.

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Features

• Semantic Version Validation: Ensures pull request versions follow semantic versioning conventions, ensuring logical progression (e.g., v1.0.1 → v1.1.0).
• Automated Merging: Automatically merges pull requests with valid versions, reducing manual intervention.
• Release Automation: Creates GitHub releases with validated versions, including changelog entries.
• Library Metadata Validation: Ensures that the library.properties file contains all required fields such as name, version, author, maintainer, etc.
• Dependency Validation: Checks that any dependencies in library.properties are in a valid format.
• Code Style Enforcement: Uses the Arduino CLI (arduino-lint) to validate code style, ensuring consistency with the Arduino standards.
• Pre-release Version Support: Allows the use of pre-release versions (e.g., v1.0.0-alpha), with a warning if included.

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Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub token for API access to merge pull requests and create releases.	Yes	${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

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Outputs

This action does not return direct outputs but performs the following actions:

• Validates the pull request version against semantic versioning rules.
• Validates library metadata, dependencies, and code style.
• Rejects invalid or duplicate versions.
• Merges valid pull requests.
• Generates a new GitHub release.

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Usage

This action is triggered by the pull_request event whenever a pull request is opened, updated, or reopened.

Example Workflow

Below is an example of a workflow using this GitHub Action:

name: Validate Library Version and Create Release  

on:  
  pull_request:  
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]  

jobs:  
  validate-and-release:  
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest  
    permissions:  
      contents: write  
      pull-requests: write  
    steps:  
      - name: Checkout Code  
        uses: actions/checkout@v3  

      - name: Arduino Library Deploy  
        uses: ktauchathuranga/[email protected]  
        env:  
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}  

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Workflow Steps

1. Checkout Code: The workflow uses actions/checkout@v3 to clone the pull request branch for inspection.
2. Version Extraction: The action extracts the version field from the library.properties file in the pull request.
3. Compare Versions: The action compares the pull request version with the current main branch version, validating the version progression:
   • Ensures the new version is greater than the current one.
   • Validates compliance with semantic versioning.
4. Library Metadata Validation: Checks the library.properties file for required fields like name, author, maintainer, etc.
5. Dependency Validation: Checks the dependencies in library.properties to ensure they are valid and well-formed.
6. Code Style Validation: Uses the arduino-lint tool to ensure code follows the correct Arduino style guide.
7. Merge and Release:
   • Merges the pull request if the version, metadata, dependencies, and code style are valid.
   • Creates a GitHub release with the validated version and a changelog entry.

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Semantic Versioning Rules

This action enforces strict adherence to Semantic Versioning (SemVer) rules:

1. Version Format: Versions must follow the format v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH> (e.g., v1.0.0).
2. Version Progression:
   • MAJOR: Incremented for breaking changes, resetting MINOR and PATCH to 0.
   • MINOR: Incremented for new features, resetting PATCH to 0.
   • PATCH: Incremented for bug fixes.
3. Valid Changes Only:
   • A new version must be greater than the current one.
   • Skipping intermediate versions without justification is disallowed (e.g., v1.0.0 → v1.0.2 without v1.0.1 is invalid).
4. Pre-release Versions: Supports pre-release identifiers (e.g., v1.0.0-alpha) for testing purposes, with a warning for inclusion.

Invalid Examples

• Backward progression: v1.0.0 → v0.9.0
• Skipping intermediate versions: v1.0.0 → v1.0.2 without v1.0.1
• Invalid version format: v1.0.0-rc (incorrect format without proper pre-release identifier)

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Error Handling

This GitHub Action will reject pull requests that fail the following conditions:

• Invalid or improperly incremented versions (e.g., backward progression, invalid format).
• Missing or invalid fields in the library.properties file.
• Invalid or incorrectly formatted dependencies.
• Code style issues detected by arduino-lint.

The action will print the corresponding error message and exit with a non-zero status, which will cause the workflow to fail.

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License

This GitHub Action is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.