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Releasing binaries

Why release-plz doesn't release binaries​

Since release-plz already publishes GitHub releases, would it make sense for it to build the binaries of the project and publish them to the release assets? 🤔

Not really. Releasing binaries requires setting a CI job different from the one used to run release-plz release because:

  • release-plz release should run once (for example on an ubuntu CI image);
  • building binaries requires a different CI image for each platform (e.g. ubuntu, macos, windows).

Since users have to set up an additional CI job to build binaries, using release-plz would not be more convenient than using a different tool. Plus, releasing binaries is a complex task, which is already well-handled by other tools in the Rust ecosystem. For these reasons, release-plz doesn't build and release binaries.

The next section explains how to use other tools to build and release binaries after release-plz released the new version of your project.

Releasing binaries after release​

If you are using release-plz to release your project, you can run a CI job on the "tag" or "release" events to build and release the binaries.

Here is an example:

name: CD # Continuous Deployment

permissions:
  contents: write

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

env:
  CARGO_INCREMENTAL: 0
  CARGO_NET_GIT_FETCH_WITH_CLI: true
  CARGO_NET_RETRY: 10
  CARGO_TERM_COLOR: always
  RUST_BACKTRACE: 1
  RUSTFLAGS: -D warnings
  RUSTUP_MAX_RETRIES: 10

defaults:
  run:
    shell: bash

jobs:
  upload-assets:
    name: ${{ matrix.target }}
    if: github.repository_owner == 'MyOwner' && startsWith(github.event.release.name, 'my-bin-v')
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        include:
          - target: aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
            os: ubuntu-22.04
          - target: aarch64-unknown-linux-musl
            os: ubuntu-22.04
          - target: aarch64-apple-darwin
            os: macos-12
          - target: aarch64-pc-windows-msvc
            os: windows-2022
          - target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
            os: ubuntu-22.04
          - target: x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
            os: ubuntu-22.04
          - target: x86_64-apple-darwin
            os: macos-12
          - target: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
            os: windows-2022
          - target: x86_64-unknown-freebsd
            os: ubuntu-22.04
    timeout-minutes: 60
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Install Rust toolchain
        uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable
      - uses: taiki-e/setup-cross-toolchain-action@v1
        with:
          target: ${{ matrix.target }}
        if: startsWith(matrix.os, 'ubuntu') && !contains(matrix.target, '-musl')
      - uses: taiki-e/install-action@cross
        if: contains(matrix.target, '-musl')
      - run: echo "RUSTFLAGS=${RUSTFLAGS} -C target-feature=+crt-static" >> "${GITHUB_ENV}"
        if: endsWith(matrix.target, 'windows-msvc')
      - uses: taiki-e/upload-rust-binary-action@v1
        with:
          bin: my-bin
          target: ${{ matrix.target }}
          tar: all
          zip: windows
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Some projects to consider for this task:

caution

To release a binary after release, the release-plz GitHub Action needs to trigger further workflow runs.