Multi-platform Swift Package releases with GitHub Actions

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

I have recently been working on a new Swift Package library that supports iOS, macOS and Linux. As I wanted the development lifecycle to be fast and iterative, I decided to make the library’s release process as automated and as error-proof as possible.

I came up with a GitHub Actions workflow that runs every time a new tag is pushed to the repository and performs the following steps:

• Build the library and run the test suite for all supported platforms.
• Check all source files to prevent non-inclusive language from making it to the release cut.
• If the two previous checks were successful, create a new GitHub release with auto-generated release notes.

The release workflow

The workflow I ended up with extends and modifies the CI workflow from Matt Massicotte’s Swift Package template repository, which I always use when starting a new project.

The template already has two steps to build and test the library on Apple platforms (iOS and macOS) and Linux.

I changed the on trigger to only be executed when a new tag matching the ‘..*’ pattern is pushed and then added a new job that checks for inclusive language using the woke GitHub action in the source files and creates a new GitHub release with auto-generated release notes if the two previous checks pass:

name: Release

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

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.head_ref || github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

env:
  DEVELOPER_DIR: /Applications/Xcode_15.2.app/Contents/Developer

jobs:
  test_apple_platforms:
    name: Test on iOS and macOS
    runs-on: macOS-13
    strategy:
      matrix:
        destination:
          - "platform=macOS"
          - "platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 12"

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Test platform ${{ matrix.destination }}
        run: set -o pipefail && xcodebuild -scheme XcodeCloudKit -destination "${{ matrix.destination }}" test | xcbeautify

  test_linux:
    name: Test Linux
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Install swiftly
        run: curl -L https://swift-server.github.io/swiftly/swiftly-install.sh | bash -s -- -y
      - name: Install the latest Swift toolchain
        run: swiftly install latest
      - name: Test
        run: swift test

  release:
    needs: [test_apple_platforms, test_linux]
    name: Create a new GitHub release
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: woke
        uses: get-woke/woke-action@v0
        with:
          fail-on-error: true
      - name: Release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v2
        with:
          generate_release_notes: true
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

After pushing a new tag to the repository, the workflow runs all jobs and creates a new GitHub release: