Automate the release process

[yuzutech]

Automate the release process

[marcelstoer]

Not sure if you already have a plan but to me the most straightforward approach is this:

• use https://github.com/spotify/dockerfile-maven to build, tag and publish Docker images
• use https://groovy.github.io/gmaven/groovy-maven-plugin to manipulate your Makefile in a platform neutral way (alternatives: Maven Ant-run plugin or shell exec).
• use https://github.com/RagedUnicorn/github-release-maven-plugin to create a release on GitHub.

In the end all you need to run is mvn release:prepare and mvn release:perform (handles version and Git tasks).

[ggrossetie]

We could start by creating the GitHub release and uploading the fat-jar.

[nejch]

Would you still need any support here @Mogztter?

I see most of it is already automated, the only thing you might still want would be:

• manual workflow to automatically create new semver tag? as you don't use conventional commits, not sure how, but maybe via scanning PR labels (e.g. fix, feature, breaking).
• add a changelog generator to the actions/create-release workflow for the body_path. Again something that is more common with conventional commits but I'm sure there are other solutions out there.

Just wondering as that would make things like #1017 (and potential follow-up as discussed in blockdiag/blockdiag#150 (comment)) easier to land with more frequent releases :)

[ggrossetie]

Would you still need any support here?
I see most of it is already automated, the only thing you might still want would be(...)
Just wondering as that would make things like #1017 (and potential follow-up as discussed in blockdiag/blockdiag#150 (comment)) easier to land with more frequent releases :)

The release part is almost completely automated and does not require much time.
However, we are lacking tests. I'm not confident enough with the current test suites, and, as a result, it takes quite a bit of time to build everything locally and perform tests.

The CI already takes around 25 minutes but I think we should run tests depending on what's changed (using paths and paths-ignore: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#onpushpull_requestpaths).

We should also be able to run a complete tests suite against https://kroki.io to make sure that the deployment (of the latest version) went well.

In short, we need more automated tests in order to release more frequently 😃