Add workflow to prepare a release PR by neilvcarvalho · Pull Request #1816 · thoughtbot/factory_bot

neilvcarvalho · 2026-04-17T20:19:25Z

Summary

Adds a manually-triggered workflow that automates the mechanical parts of preparing a release:

A maintainer picks patch, minor, or major from a dropdown in the GitHub Actions UI
Uses gem-release's gem bump to update lib/factory_bot/version.rb
Collects all merged PRs since the last release tag via gh pr list and formats them as changelog entries
If an ## Unreleased section exists in NEWS.md, its content is merged into the new version section (duplicates with PR titles are acceptable)
Commits both changes to a release/vX.Y.Z branch and opens a draft PR named "Release vX.Y.Z" for review before anything is published

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds a manually-triggered GitHub Actions workflow and supporting Rake task to automate preparing a draft release PR (version bump + changelog update).

Changes:

Added release:update_changelog[VERSION] Rake task to update NEWS.md using merged PRs since the last tag (and merge/remove ## Unreleased).
Updated Rakefile to load .rake files from tasks/.
Added prepare-release.yml workflow to bump the gem version, update NEWS.md, push a release branch, and open a draft PR.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

File	Description
`tasks/release.rake`	Implements changelog generation and `NEWS.md` section management.
`Rakefile`	Loads tasks from `tasks/*.rake` so the new release task is available.
`.github/workflows/prepare-release.yml`	Adds a workflow to run the version bump + changelog update and open a draft release PR.

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Copilot · 2026-04-17T20:36:14Z

+    if news =~ /^## Unreleased\n(.*?)(?=^## )/m
+      unreleased = $1.strip
+      news = news.sub(/^## Unreleased\n.*?(?=^## )/m, "")


The ## Unreleased extraction/removal regex only matches when another ## ... header follows. If ## Unreleased is the last section in NEWS.md, it won’t be merged/removed. Consider extending the regex to also match end-of-file so this works regardless of section ordering.

Suggested change

if news =~ /^## Unreleased\n(.*?)(?=^## )/m

unreleased = $1.strip

news = news.sub(/^## Unreleased\n.*?(?=^## )/m, "")

if news =~ /^## Unreleased\n(.*?)(?=^## |\z)/m

unreleased = $1.strip

news = news.sub(/^## Unreleased\n.*?(?=^## |\z)/m, "")

Copilot · 2026-04-17T20:36:15Z

+    body = [unreleased, pr_entries].reject(&:empty?).join("\n")
+    new_section = "## #{version} (#{today})\n\n#{body}\n"
+
+    news.sub!(/^(# News\n+)/, "\\1#{new_section}\n")


sub! will return nil if the # News header pattern isn’t found, but the task will still write the file and print success. Consider checking the return value and aborting with a helpful error when the expected header isn’t present, to avoid silently producing no changelog update.

Suggested change

news.sub!(/^(# News\n+)/, "\\1#{new_section}\n")

unless news.sub!(/^(# News\n+)/, "\\1#{new_section}\n")

abort 'Expected NEWS.md to contain a "# News" header so the changelog entry could be inserted.'

end

Copilot · 2026-04-17T20:36:15Z

+      - name: Update NEWS.md
+        env:
+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
+        run: bundle exec rake "release:update_changelog[${{ steps.version.outputs.new }}]"


This workflow runs bundle exec rake ... but never installs the bundle. Unlike .github/workflows/build.yml, there’s no bundle install (or bundler-cache: true), so this step will fail on a fresh runner. Add a dependency install step before invoking bundle exec.

@copilot apply changes based on this feedback

Added a bundle install step between ruby/setup-ruby and the bundle exec rake call, matching the pattern used in build.yml. Fixed in 5d61d82.

Copilot · 2026-04-17T20:36:15Z

+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
+          NEW_VERSION: ${{ steps.version.outputs.new }}
+        run: |
+          BRANCH="release/v$NEW_VERSION"


Branch naming here uses release/vX.Y.Z, but the project’s documented convention in RELEASING.md is release-x.x.x. To avoid confusion/automation mismatches, consider aligning the workflow’s branch name with the documented convention (or update the docs as part of this PR).

Suggested change

BRANCH="release/v$NEW_VERSION"

BRANCH="release-$NEW_VERSION"

Copilot · 2026-04-17T20:36:16Z

+  desc "Update NEWS.md with merged PRs since the last release tag. Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION]"
+  task :update_changelog, [:version] do |_, args|
+    version = args.fetch(:version) { abort "Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION]" }
+
+    # Find the last release tag and when it was made
+    last_tag = `git tag --sort=-version:refname`.split.grep(/^v?[0-9]/).first
+    since_date = `git log -1 --format=%as #{last_tag}`.strip
+


last_tag can be nil if the repo has no tags matching ^v?[0-9], which will cause since_date to be derived from HEAD (and can lead to an empty/incorrect changelog range). Consider explicitly aborting with a clear message when no release tag is found, or allow an explicit since/tag argument for the task.

Suggested change

desc "Update NEWS.md with merged PRs since the last release tag. Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION]"

task :update_changelog, [:version] do |_, args|

version = args.fetch(:version) { abort "Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION]" }

# Find the last release tag and when it was made

last_tag = `git tag --sort=-version:refname`.split.grep(/^v?[0-9]/).first

since_date = `git log -1 --format=%as #{last_tag}`.strip

desc "Update NEWS.md with merged PRs since the last release tag. Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION[,TAG[,SINCE]]]"

task :update_changelog, [:version, :tag, :since] do |_, args|

version = args.fetch(:version) { abort "Usage: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION[,TAG[,SINCE]]]" }

# Determine the changelog start date from an explicit date, an explicit tag, or the last release tag

since_date =

if args[:since] && !args[:since].strip.empty?

args[:since].strip

else

last_tag = if args[:tag] && !args[:tag].strip.empty?

args[:tag].strip

else

`git tag --sort=-version:refname`.split.grep(/^v?[0-9]/).first

end

abort "No release tag found matching ^v?[0-9]. Provide TAG or SINCE explicitly: rake release:update_changelog[VERSION[,TAG[,SINCE]]]" unless last_tag

`git log -1 --format=%as #{last_tag}`.strip

end

…rkflow Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/sessions/51e4ccb7-1eef-4798-b80e-f87f1f5f7850 Co-authored-by: neilvcarvalho <761956+neilvcarvalho@users.noreply.github.com>

neilvcarvalho and others added 2 commits April 17, 2026 17:16

Add workflow to prepare a release PR

cf1f922

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Extract changelog update logic into a Rake task

ba7d8ca

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

neilvcarvalho requested a review from Copilot April 17, 2026 20:32

neilvcarvalho marked this pull request as ready for review April 17, 2026 20:32

neilvcarvalho requested a review from vburzynski as a code owner April 17, 2026 20:32

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of neilvcarvalho April 17, 2026 20:33 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Apr 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

Copilot started work on behalf of neilvcarvalho April 17, 2026 20:39 View session

Add bundle install step before bundle exec rake in prepare-release wo…

5d61d82

…rkflow Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/sessions/51e4ccb7-1eef-4798-b80e-f87f1f5f7850 Co-authored-by: neilvcarvalho <761956+neilvcarvalho@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of neilvcarvalho April 17, 2026 20:41

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Add workflow to prepare a release PR#1816

Add workflow to prepare a release PR#1816
neilvcarvalho wants to merge 3 commits intomainfrom
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-    news.sub!(/^(# News\n+)/, "\\1#{new_section}\n")
+    unless news.sub!(/^(# News\n+)/, "\\1#{new_section}\n")
+      abort 'Expected NEWS.md to contain a "# News" header so the changelog entry could be inserted.'
+    end

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neilvcarvalho commented Apr 17, 2026

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