GitHub Actions Tutorial — Release Events

Release Events

The release trigger fires when a GitHub release is created, published, edited, or deleted. This is the standard way to automate release pipelines — building binaries, publishing packages, and deploying production code.

---

Release Activity Types

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

Activity Type	When It Fires
published	Release is published (most common)
created	Release is created (draft or published)
edited	Release notes or assets are edited
released	Release changed from draft to published
prereleased	Pre-release is published
deleted	Release is deleted

Best practice: Use published for production releases. It fires when a release goes from draft to published, or when a non-draft release is created directly.

---

Publish to npm on Release

name: Publish to npm

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'

      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm publish --provenance --access public
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

---

Build and Upload Release Assets

name: Release Binaries

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build binary
        run: |
          go build -o myapp-linux-amd64
          tar czf myapp-linux-amd64.tar.gz myapp-linux-amd64

      - name: Upload to release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        with:
          files: myapp-linux-amd64.tar.gz

---

Release Context Variables

When a release triggers the workflow, you get release-specific context:

Variable	Value
${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}	v2.1.0
${{ github.event.release.name }}	Release 2.1.0
${{ github.event.release.body }}	Release notes (markdown)
${{ github.event.release.prerelease }}	true or false
${{ github.event.release.draft }}	true or false

---

Issue and Issue Comment Events

Beyond releases, you can trigger workflows on issue and comment activity:

Issue Events

on:
  issues:
    types: [opened, labeled]

jobs:
  triage:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Auto-assign
        if: contains(github.event.issue.labels.*.name, 'bug')
        run: echo "Bug issue opened — assigning to on-call team"

Issue Comment Events

on:
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]

jobs:
  slash-command:
    if: startsWith(github.event.comment.body, '/deploy')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "Deploy command received from ${{ github.event.comment.user.login }}"

---

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Workflow runs on draft releases	Use types: [published] not types: [created]
Can’t access release tag	Use ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}, not ${{ github.ref }}
Release asset upload fails	Add permissions: contents: write to the job

---

Quick Reference

Trigger	Activity Type	Use Case
release: published	Production release	Publish packages, deploy
release: prereleased	Pre-release	Staging deploy, beta publish
issues: opened	New issue	Auto-triage, auto-label
issue_comment: created	New comment	Slash commands, chatops

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