Use release events to trigger builds from automated weekly releases

[Arlodotexe]

Problem

Automated weekly releases created by scheduled-releases.yml were not triggering the build workflow, resulting in missing release artifacts and malformed version numbers.

Root Cause: GitHub Actions tokens cannot trigger workflows on tag creation events. When the scheduled workflow creates tags via git tag and git push, the resulting tag event is ignored by other workflows due to GitHub's security model.

Reference: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/76402

"If an action uses a token to do something to the repo, it won't trigger other actions"

Solution

Replace git tag + git push with gh release create, which triggers release events that CAN be activated by Actions tokens.

Key Insight: gh release create automatically creates the associated tag if it doesn't exist, so we don't need separate tag creation commands.

Changes

.github/workflows/scheduled-releases.yml

• Removed: Git configuration (no longer needed with gh CLI)
• Changed: Tag creation approach from git tag -a + git push to gh release create
• Added: Release title and auto-generated release notes
• Added: --prerelease flag to mark weekly releases appropriately

Before:

- name: Create and push tag
  run: |
    TAG="release/weekly/$(date +%y%m%d)"
    git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
    git config user.email "github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
    git tag -a "$TAG" -m "Release $TAG"
    git push origin "$TAG"

After:

- name: Create weekly release
  env:
    GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
  run: |
    TAG="release/weekly/$(date +%y%m%d)"
    gh release create "$TAG" \
      --title "Weekly Release $(date +%y%m%d)" \
      --generate-notes \
      --prerelease

.github/workflows/build.yml

• Added: release: types: [published] trigger to catch automated releases
• Added: Filter step to restrict builds to weekly releases only (blocks manual releases with non-matching patterns)

New trigger:

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
    tags: [ 'release/weekly/**' ]  # Keep for backward compatibility
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, reopened, synchronize]
  release:                          # NEW
    types: [published]

New filter step:

- name: Check if weekly release
  if: github.event_name == 'release'
  shell: pwsh
  run: |
    $tagName = "${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}"
    Write-Host "Release event triggered with tag: $tagName"
    
    if ($tagName -match "^release/weekly/") {
      Write-Host "✓ Matched weekly release tag: $tagName"
      exit 0
    } else {
      Write-Host "✗ Tag does not match weekly pattern: $tagName - skipping build"
      exit 1
    }

Testing

• Automated test: Next scheduled run on Wednesday will validate the fix
• Manual test: Can trigger scheduled-releases.yml manually via Actions UI
• Expected behavior:
  • Release created with auto-generated tag
  • Build workflow triggers from release event
  • Version formatting works correctly
  • Release artifacts published successfully

Backward Compatibility

The existing tags: [ 'release/weekly/**' ] trigger remains in place for backward compatibility with any manual tag pushes, though the primary trigger path is now the release event.

References

• GitHub Community Discussion: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/76402
• Related to ongoing CI improvements post-runner fix

[Arlodotexe]

Missing fixes for malformed package names and missing Ribbon control, coming soon™️.

[michael-hawker]

Let's try this out then