CLI Release creation needs to auto-truncate (or have an option to auto-truncate) automatically generated notes

[apearce-nov]

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When working with the Github CLI to create a release, there is an option to automatically generate release notes using the --generate-notes flag. If the release contains a very large changeset, though, the Github API will return an error that the body is too long (more info in this CLI issue: cli/cli#7815).

The Github GUI auto-truncates when generating release notes correctly, and manually editing release notes (or setting your own) works via CLI/API as well, but automated workflows are blocked from using auto-generated notes if the changeset is too big because there's no option to force the API to truncate.

I'd like to get a discussion started about what it would take to update the relevant API endpoint to include an option to auto-truncate the generated notes.

[apearce-nov]

Is that what the Github Create Release GUI does?

[apearce-nov]

In case anyone else has this question, I resolved this problem by using the github api to generate the full release notes. I then trim the notes (by section) so that the entire note will fit in the 125,000 character limit. I then feed those notes into the Github CLI to create the release.

// ./tools/scripts/generate-release-notes.js

const github = require('@actions/github');

/**
 * Generates the release notes for a github release.
 *
 * Arguments:
 * 1 - github_token
 * 2 - new version
 */
const token = process.argv[2];
const version = process.argv[3];

async function main() {
  const client = github.getOctokit(token);

  const latestReleaseResponse = await client.request(
    'GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/latest',
    {
      owner: 'my-org',
      repo: 'my-repo',
      headers: {
        'X-GitHub-Api-Version': '2022-11-28',
      },
    }
  );
  const previousTag = latestReleaseResponse.data?.tag_name;

  const response = await client.request(
    'POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/generate-notes',
    {
      owner: 'my-org',
      repo: 'my-repo',
      tag_name: version,
      previous_tag_name: previousTag,
      headers: {
        'X-GitHub-Api-Version': '2022-11-28',
      },
    }
  );

  const noteSections = response.data.body?.split('\n\n');
  const trimmedSections = [];
  const githubNotesMaxCharLength = 125000;
  const maxSectionLength = githubNotesMaxCharLength / noteSections.length;
  for (let i = 0; i < noteSections.length; i++) {
    if (noteSections[i].length > githubNotesMaxCharLength) {
      const lastLineIndex =
        noteSections[i].substring(0, maxSectionLength).split('\n').length - 1;
      const trimmed =
        noteSections[i]
          .split('\n')
          .slice(0, lastLineIndex - 1)
          .join('\n') +
        `\n... (+${
          noteSections[i].split('\n').length - (lastLineIndex + 1)
        } others)`;
      trimmedSections.push(trimmed);
      continue;
    }

    trimmedSections.push(noteSections[i]);
  }

  console.log(trimmedSections.join('\n\n'));
}

main().catch((e) => {
  console.error(`Failed generating release notes with error: ${e}`);
  process.exit(0);
});

// release.yml
tag-branch:
    name: Tag Branch
    runs-on: [ubuntu-latest]
    steps:
      # Recover workspace
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Install node modules
        run: npm ci

      # Start job-specific steps
      - name: Save Build Number and Component Version
        id: build_info
        run: node tools/scripts/set_version_num.js // external script where I determine what the version number is
      - name: Delete Existing Tag
        uses: dev-drprasad/[email protected]
        with:
          delete_release: true
          tag_name: '${{ steps.build_info.outputs.version }}'
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      - name: Tag Branch with Build Number
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          git tag "${{ steps.build_info.outputs.version }}"
          git push origin --tags

      - name: Generate Release Notes
        id: generate-release-notes
        run: |
          node tools/scripts/generate-release-notes.js '${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}' '${{ github.event.inputs.version }}' > notes.txt
      - name: Create Release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: gh release create "${{ steps.build_info.outputs.version }}" --repo "${{ github.repository }}" --title "${{ steps.build_info.outputs.version }}" --notes-file notes.txt

[te2687076-web]

#180138 #180139 #179961 #179961