Proposal versioning

[siredmar]

I suggest using semantic versioning for this project.
There is a wide range of tools out there in this regard.

I suggest using tsemantic-release](https://github.com/semantic-release/semantic-release)
If you like I can setup a PR for that.
The only thing that you need to change is the commit message like Conventional Commits.
semantic-release is highly adaptable and can generate changelogs, builds, (pre)releases, all kinds of artifacts,...
it is integrated into GH actions easily.

What do you think?

[stwe]

Never used, I'll take a look...

[stwe]

Ok, I tried this new hipster stuff in another repo. The application somehow makes sense (it looks good), but the setup is an absolute horror. Is there a working example for Github somewhere? The following minimal setup works with limitations:

.github/workflows/release.yml

name: Release
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 18
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx semantic-release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}

package.json

{
  "name": "my-pkg",
  "private": true,
  "release": {
    "branches": ["main"]
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/stwe/blabla"
  }
}

And miraculously a v1.0.0 tag is created with "fix: semantic-release test".

Problem: the count should start with 0.1
Problem: I also had to create a package-lock.json in the repo because of the following error message:

npm ERR! The npm ci command can only install with an existing package-lock.json or
npm ERR! npm-shrinkwrap.json with lockfileVersion >= 1. Run an install with npm@5 or
npm ERR! later to generate a package-lock.json file, then try again.

Finally, I tried using the Changelog-Plugin. He can not find that, although this function would be important to me. Same as here: semantic-release/semantic-release#1898

[siredmar]

Problem 1: the fact, that it starts with 1.0.0 is by design of semantic-release. You can always release pre-releases (see https://blog.greenkeeper.io/introduction-to-semver-d272990c44f2 for the why).
tldr: it doesn't matter.

Problem 2: the package-lock.json comes from the npm ci step where you want a really well defined environment for your CI/CD. You don't want the build breaking just because some upstream library you are using in your CI chain changed. Thus the package-log.json is needed to ensure that the exactly defined environment will be installed.

[stwe]

I found a setup that works in other projects and which I will use here:

Run the following command in the project folder:

npm i semantic-release

Add to the created project.json:

{
  "name": "mdcii",
  "private": true,
  "release": {
    "branches": [
      "main"
    ]
  },
  //...
}

Install the plugins with:

npm i @semantic-release/changelog -D
npm i @semantic-release/git -D

Configure the plugins:

"plugins": [
  "@semantic-release/commit-analyzer",
  "@semantic-release/release-notes-generator",
  [
    "@semantic-release/changelog",
    {
      "changelogFile": "docs/CHANGELOG.md"
    }
  ],
  [
    "@semantic-release/git",
    {
      "assets": ["docs/CHANGELOG.md"]
    }
  ]
]

The node_modules folder needs to be in the .gitignore.

Create the release.yml file in .github/workflows/.

The content of the file looks like this:

name: Release
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          cache: npm
          node-version: 18
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx semantic-release

The only problem I have is setting up push access via token. There is the Workflow permissions menu, where you can set write permissions directly. Then it works.

@siredmar Any suggestions for improvement?

[siredmar]

For semantic-release to work using github actions you need to create at personal access token with the following permissions:

I'd suggest using the Classic Token and set the expiration you want. Add the created token as secret in this repository and reference as used here #15 (comment)

I use this in all my repos and it works like a charm.