Automated release process?

[luwes]

An automated NPM publish by a Github action when merging to the main branch with a prerelease version (+ commit SHA) on a specific NPM dist tag. Makes sense to use a similar version format Lerna is using for this since we use this in Mux elements. See link below.

The added commit hash (SHA) is useful because CI/CD runs possibly in parallel, multiple people w/ several feature branches -> avoid version collisions.

Handy resources:

• https://github.com/lerna/lerna/tree/main/commands/publish#--canary
• https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-dist-tag
• https://liquidsoftware.com/blog/the-7-deadly-sins-of-versioning-part-2/

Question 1: See below interactive poll ⬇️

Question 2: What should the NPM dist tag (release channels) be called?

• next
• canary
• beta
• stable
• dev
• other

Please answer with comment

Question 3: Should we also do this for Pull Requests?

• yes
• no

If yes, please answer yes with answers for question 1 (prerelease tag?) & 2 (dist tag?)

Question 4: Should there be a manual GH action trigger for a normal release?

[luwes]

• Question 1: I chose alpha e.g. 1.1.0-alpha.0+81e3b443
  beta or rc feels more mature than what's merged in the main branch each time. keep canary for PR's.
• Question 2: I chose dev channel. keep next for beta's and RC's. keep canary for PR's.
• Question 3: not yet I think, until there is a need for it
• Question 4: yes, provide a GH action manual trigger to create a normal NPM release

[dylanjha]

@luwes

We discussed this on a call. What we're landing on is:

• All commits on main get a published canary version: They will be on the @canary NPM release channel and be versioned like: 1.1.0-canary+81e3b443
• GH action to manually trigger a normal NPM release

In this set up we will have 2 NPM release channels:

• latest (default, normal production release channel)
• canary (every commit on main)

And we will also want a next release channel:

• next (the next release, that we consider stable and want people to try before making it latest)