feat: add automated published branch releases for dev & main

[danielbarion]

Description of change

I recently implemented a beta-release workflow on the react-tooltip project, maybe it can be interesting for Pixi.js project too.

On ReactTooltip project, we always try to release a beta version on some PR before merging it to let the owner of the issue test and confirm if the issue was solved, this also unblocks projects that are waiting for some fix before we release an official version with the fix.

With the beta release workflow, all commits into the PR will trigger the beta release.

• The beta release always releases a new beta version, following this format:
  pixi.js@{__VERSION__}-beta.{__PR_NUMBER__}.rc.{__BETA_VERSION__} -> pixi.js@v0.0.11-beta.1.rc.1
__VERSION__ - current package.json version on this PR
  __PR_NUMBER__ - current PR number
  __BETA_VERSION__ - latest beta version released
• to skip the workflow we need to add the following words to the commit message:

[skip ci]
[ci skip]
[no ci]
[skip actions]
[actions skip]

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/managing-workflow-runs/skipping-workflow-runs

Examples

ReactTooltip/react-tooltip#1179 (comment)

https://github.com/ReactTooltip/react-tooltip/actions/runs/9007001657/job/24745795089?pr=1179

The previous beta version is null because that's the first beta release for this PR number.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-tooltip?activeTab=versions

Note: ReactTooltip master branch has the CJS code (same as this PR), on V6 branch we have it as ESM version of the code.

[korbit-ai]

My review is in progress 📖 - I will have feedback for you in a few minutes!

[codesandbox-ci]

This pull request is automatically built and testable in CodeSandbox.

To see build info of the built libraries, click here or the icon next to each commit SHA.

Latest deployment of this branch, based on commit a194cab:

Sandbox	Source
pixi.js-sandbox	Configuration

[korbit-ai]

I have reviewed your code and found 1 potential issue. To discuss my individual comments that I have added, tag me in replies using @korbit-ai.

---

Please react with a 👍 to my comments that you find helpful and a 👎 to those you find unhelpful - this will help me learn and improve as we collaborate.

[bigtimebuddy]

@danielbarion We (@Zyie @GoodBoyDigital and I) had a chance to review this change this morning. Overall we love the general idea and thank you for proposing it! Super useful feature to opt-in to bleeding-edge unreleased changes.

@Zyie pointed out that our codesandbox integration offers some of this (at least testing purposes) for PRs and there is also a mechanism to download a build (I think) using that tool.

That said, we still think there's something here and we have some feedback. If you don't have time to work on these, just let us know someone on the team will likely pick it up.

• Rather than focus on PRs, would like to provide automated releases for unreleased but merged functionality. It's common feedback we get that sometimes users have to wait awhile for a release. This would help elevate that pressure.
• We'd like to not use the term "beta" here for these release, we use "beta" semver for specific, intentional tagged releases.
• Preference would be to have versions formatted as: 8.1.0-[branch].[commit-hash], for instance 8.1.3-dev.9afd9d3. The benefit of doing this is that versions would tie directly to the branch and commit. That's super helpful for debugging and triaging errors.
• Preference for npm dist-tags to use the branch name, e.g., dev, that way users could define "pixi.js": "dev" in their dependencies or npm install pixi.js@dev
• We would only like to focus on main and dev branches as these are the only branches we cut releases from.

What do you think?

[danielbarion]

Hey @bigtimebuddy & team, it does make sense! the initial implementation is the same as we have on ReactTooltip that matches our needs.

Thank you so much for reviewing this suggestion and for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate that!

I would like to focus on those changes so the Pixi team can concentrate on other stuff, I have a test repository where I developed this workflow initially to not release the test versions directly on the ReactTooltip project, I'll use it to apply the needs mentioned on your feedback.

I'll keep you guys in the loop.

Thanks!

Edit:

What should be the name of the workflow? Release Candidate instead of Beta Release?

[bigtimebuddy]

Maybe, Publish Branch?

[danielbarion]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/auto-beta-release?activeTab=versions

The code was updated, please let me know if something else is needed, I didn't update the PR description because of our comments, but please let me know your thoughts about it and about the changes

[bigtimebuddy]

@danielbarion I did a quick experiment here that seemed to work for me:

https://github.com/bigtimebuddy/actions-branch-version/blob/a68fa58bdbc26d9e7ef8e662f78aff09aab89a62/.github/workflows/main.yml#L34

Added two args to npm version:

• --no-git-tag-version - Ignores git tagging which means that it doesn't require git auth/identity
• --force - Bump the version even if the git workspace is dirty or has uncommitted changed, this wasn't necessary, but will help prevent issues with, say, npm updates that change the package-lock.json

[danielbarion]

@bigtimebuddy hmm, interesting, maybe it's the action I was using? I saw the project is using v3 and I was using v4 initially (uses: actions/setup-node@v3), or maybe the setup I did previously.

Thanks for letting me know

[danielbarion]

Sorry, I asked review again but I forgot to apply the change, 1 second.

[danielbarion]

Updated

[bigtimebuddy]

Could you revert the package.json and package-lock and I think we are good to go!

[danielbarion]

@bigtimebuddy NPM sorted the package by itself, should I remove it too?

[bigtimebuddy]

Looks good, thank you!

[bigtimebuddy]

Also, are we even building before the publish?

[Zyie]

@bigtimebuddy @danielbarion is everything all settled with this PR now?

[danielbarion]

yes @Zyie

[bigtimebuddy]

Yeah, I'm good on this. I think we should merge this into dev and just validate that everyone is working as expected.

[danielbarion]

@Zyie @bigtimebuddy

[Zyie]

Ok this seems to be working!

https://www.npmjs.com/package/pixi.js/v/8.1.5-dev.141f7e0?activeTab=versions

Thank you @danielbarion for adding this

[danielbarion]

@Zyie do you want me to do the PR to main?

[Zyie]

@Zyie do you want me to do the PR to main?

no it's ok, this will get merged into main when i do the next release