Check Release Exists Action

A GitHub Action that checks if a specific version release exists in a repository. This action is useful for validating releases in CI/CD workflows, ensuring proper version management, and preventing duplicate releases.

Features

• ✅ Validates if a release tag exists in the repository
• 🔍 Uses GitHub CLI for reliable release checking
• 📤 Provides outputs for conditional workflow logic
• 🛡️ Proper error handling and informative logging
• 🌐 Cross-platform compatible (Windows, Linux, macOS)

Usage

Basic Example

name: Check Release
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      version:
        description: 'Version to check'
        required: true
        type: string

jobs:
  check-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check if release exists
        id: check-release
        uses: optivem/check-release-exists-action@v1
        with:
          version: ${{ inputs.version }}
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      
      - name: Handle release exists
        if: steps.check-release.outputs.exists == 'true'
        run: echo "Release ${{ inputs.version }} exists!"
      
      - name: Handle release doesn't exist
        if: steps.check-release.outputs.exists == 'false'
        run: echo "Release ${{ inputs.version }} does not exist"

Advanced Example with Conditional Logic

name: Deploy if Release Exists
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  check-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - name: Get version from package.json
        id: version
        run: echo "version=v$(jq -r '.version' package.json)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
      
      - name: Check if release exists
        id: check-release
        uses: optivem/check-release-exists-action@v1
        with:
          version: ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      
      - name: Deploy to production
        if: steps.check-release.outputs.exists == 'true'
        run: |
          echo "Deploying release ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }} to production"
          # Your deployment commands here
      
      - name: Skip deployment
        if: steps.check-release.outputs.exists == 'false'
        run: echo "No release found for ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}, skipping deployment"

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
version	Release version to validate (e.g., v1.0.4, v2.1.0-rc)	✅ Yes	-
github-token	GitHub token for API access	✅ Yes	${{ github.token }}

Outputs

Output	Description	Example
exists	Whether the release exists (true/false)	true

Requirements

• The action uses GitHub CLI (gh) which is pre-installed on GitHub-hosted runners
• Requires a valid GitHub token with repository read access

Error Handling

The action will:

• ✅ Exit with code 0 when the check completes (whether the release exists or not)
• ❌ Exit with code 1 only on script or API errors
• 📝 Provide detailed logging for debugging

Use Cases

• Release Validation: Ensure a release exists before deploying
• Version Checking: Validate version tags in CI/CD pipelines
• Conditional Workflows: Execute different steps based on release existence
• Quality Gates: Prevent actions on non-existent releases

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please open an issue.