📦

action gh-release

A GitHub Action for creating GitHub Releases on Linux, Windows, and macOS virtual environments

• 🤸 Usage
  • 🚥 Limit releases to pushes to tags
  • ⬆️ Uploading release assets
  • 📝 External release notes
  • 💅 Customizing
    • inputs
    • outputs
    • environment variables
  • Permissions

🤸 Usage

🚥 Limit releases to pushes to tags

Typically usage of this action involves adding a step to a build that is gated pushes to git tags. You may find step.if field helpful in accomplishing this as it maximizes the reuse value of your workflow for non-tag pushes.

Below is a simple example of step.if tag gating

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        if: github.ref_type == 'tag'

You can also use push config tag filter

name: Main

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - "v*.*.*"

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2

⬆️ Uploading release assets

You can configure a number of options for your GitHub release and all are optional.

A common case for GitHub releases is to upload your binary after its been validated and packaged. Use the with.files input to declare a newline-delimited list of glob expressions matching the files you wish to upload to GitHub releases. If you'd like you can just list the files by name directly. If a tag already has a GitHub release, the existing release will be updated with the release assets.

Below is an example of uploading a single asset named Release.txt

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Build
        run: echo ${{ github.sha }} > Release.txt
      - name: Test
        run: cat Release.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        if: github.ref_type == 'tag'
        with:
          files: Release.txt

Below is an example of uploading more than one asset with a GitHub release

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Build
        run: echo ${{ github.sha }} > Release.txt
      - name: Test
        run: cat Release.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        if: github.ref_type == 'tag'
        with:
          files: |
            Release.txt
            LICENSE

⚠️ Note: Notice the | in the yaml syntax above ☝️. That lets you effectively declare a multi-line yaml string. You can learn more about multi-line yaml syntax here

⚠️ Note for Windows: Both \ and / path separators are accepted in files globs. If you need to match a literal glob metacharacter such as [ or ], keep escaping the metacharacter itself in the pattern.

📝 External release notes

Many systems exist that can help generate release notes for you. This action supports loading release notes from a path in your repository's build to allow for the flexibility of using any changelog generator for your releases, including a human 👩‍💻

name: Main

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Generate Changelog
        run: echo "# Good things have arrived" > ${{ github.workspace }}-CHANGELOG.txt
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        if: github.ref_type == 'tag'
        with:
          body_path: ${{ github.workspace }}-CHANGELOG.txt
          repository: my_gh_org/my_gh_repo
          # note you'll typically need to create a personal access token
          # with permissions to create releases in the other repo.
          # A non-empty explicit token overrides GITHUB_TOKEN.
          # Omit the input to use github.token; passing "" treats the token as unset.
          token: ${{ secrets.CUSTOM_GITHUB_TOKEN }}

When you use GitHub's built-in generate_release_notes support, you can optionally pin the comparison base explicitly with previous_tag. This is useful when the default comparison range does not match the release series you want to publish.

- name: Release
  uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
  with:
    tag_name: stage-2026-03-15
    target_commitish: ${{ github.sha }}
    previous_tag: prod-2026-03-01
    generate_release_notes: true

💅 Customizing

inputs

The following are optional as step.with keys

Name	Type	Description
body	String	Text communicating notable changes in this release
body_path	String	Path to load text communicating notable changes in this release
draft	Boolean	Keep the release as a draft. Defaults to false. When reusing an existing draft release, set this to true to keep it draft; omit it to publish after upload.
prerelease	Boolean	Indicator of whether or not is a prerelease
preserve_order	Boolean	Upload assets sequentially in the provided order. This controls the action's upload behavior, but it does not control the final asset ordering that GitHub may display on the release page or return from the Releases API.
files	String	Newline-delimited globs of paths to assets to upload for release. Escape glob metacharacters when you need to match a literal filename that contains them, such as [ or ]. ~/... expands to the runner home directory. On Windows, both \ and / separators are accepted. GitHub may normalize raw asset filenames that contain special characters; the action restores the asset label when possible, but the final download name remains GitHub-controlled.
overwrite_files	Boolean	Indicator of whether files should be overwritten when they already exist. Defaults to true
name	String	Name of the release. defaults to tag name
tag_name	String	Name of a tag. defaults to github.ref_name. refs/tags/<name> values are normalized to <name>.
fail_on_unmatched_files	Boolean	Indicator of whether to fail if any of the files globs match nothing
repository	String	Name of a target repository in <owner>/<repo> format. Defaults to GITHUB_REPOSITORY env variable
target_commitish	String	Commitish value that determines where the Git tag is created from. Can be any branch or commit SHA. Defaults to repository default branch. When creating a new tag for an older commit, github.token may not have permission to create the ref; use a PAT or another token with sufficient contents permissions if you hit 403 Resource not accessible by integration.
token	String	Authorized GitHub token or PAT. Defaults to ${{ github.token }} when omitted. A non-empty explicit token overrides GITHUB_TOKEN. Passing "" treats the token as explicitly unset, so omit the input entirely or use an expression such as `${{ inputs.token
discussion_category_name	String	If specified, a discussion of the specified category is created and linked to the release. The value must be a category that already exists in the repository. For more information, see "Managing categories for discussions in your repository."
generate_release_notes	Boolean	Whether to automatically generate the name and body for this release. If name is specified, the specified name will be used; otherwise, a name will be automatically generated. If body is specified, the body will be pre-pended to the automatically generated notes. See the GitHub docs for this feature for more information
previous_tag	String	Optional. When generate_release_notes is enabled, use this tag as GitHub's previous_tag_name comparison base. If omitted, GitHub chooses the comparison base automatically.
append_body	Boolean	Append to existing body instead of overwriting it
make_latest	String	Specifies whether this release should be set as the latest release for the repository. Drafts and prereleases cannot be set as latest. Can be true, false, or legacy. Uses GitHub api defaults if not provided

💡 When providing a body and body_path at the same time, body_path will be attempted first, then falling back on body if the path can not be read from.

💡 When the release info keys (such as name, body, prerelease, etc.) are not explicitly set and there is already an existing release for the tag, the release will retain its original info.

💡 Draft status is handled separately during finalization. If the action reuses an existing draft release, set draft: true to keep it draft; if draft is omitted, the action will publish that draft after uploading assets.

💡 files is glob-based, so literal filenames that contain glob metacharacters such as [ or ] must be escaped in the pattern.

💡 GitHub may normalize or rewrite uploaded asset filenames that contain special or non-ASCII characters. This action uploads the requested file, but it cannot force the final asset name that GitHub stores or returns from the Releases API. In particular, 4-byte Unicode characters such as emoji cannot currently be restored via asset labels.

outputs

The following outputs can be accessed via ${{ steps.<step-id>.outputs }} from this action

Name	Type	Description
url	String	Github.com URL for the release
id	String	Release ID
upload_url	String	URL for uploading assets to the release
assets	String	JSON array containing information about each updated (newly uploaded or overwritten) asset, in the format given here (minus the uploader field)

As an example, you can use ${{ fromJSON(steps.<step-id>.outputs.assets)[0].browser_download_url }} to get the download URL of the first asset.

environment variables

The following step.env keys are allowed as a fallback but deprecated in favor of using inputs.

Name	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	GITHUB_TOKEN as provided by secrets
GITHUB_REPOSITORY	Name of a target repository in <owner>/<repo> format. defaults to the current repository

⚠️ Note: This action was previously implemented as a Docker container, limiting its use to GitHub Actions Linux virtual environments only. With recent releases, we now support cross platform usage. You'll need to remove the docker:// prefix in these versions

Permissions

This Action requires the following permissions on the GitHub integration token:

permissions:
  contents: write

When used with discussion_category_name, additional permission is needed:

permissions:
  contents: write
  discussions: write

GitHub token permissions can be set for an individual job, workflow, or for Actions as a whole.

Note that if you intend to run workflows on the release event (on: { release: { types: [published] } }), you need to use a personal access token for this action, as the default secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN does not trigger another workflow.

Doug Tangren (softprops) 2019