Use Release Drafter to make releasing easier

[hugovk]

Before making the next release, I'd like to propose some more automation using Release Drafter, to make releasing easier and take out some of the drudgery. I'm using this in more than a dozen other projects.

The new workflow would be something like:

Before merging PRs:

• Add one of the following labels:

  • changelog: Added
  • changelog: Changed
  • changelog: Deprecated
  • changelog: Fixed
  • changelog: Removed
  • changelog: Security
  • changelog: skip

• Check the PR title is suitable to be shown in the release page

After merge:

• The action runs and it creates a draft release under https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/releases. Only committers can see this, until published.
• It groups the changes under those headers.
• And because we use SemVer, it also pre-fills the next version number. So for example, if there's just "Changelog: Fixed", it's a micro bump; if "Changelog: Added", it's minor, and if "Changelog: Removed", it's major.
• "Changelog: skip" is for tests and things that aren't of interest to the end user and don't need adding to the changelog.

At release:

• When it's time to release, edit the draft and adjust the text if needed, then publish like before

Benefits:

• We don't need to manually trawl through the PRs from last time and manually update https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/blob/master/HISTORY.md
• You pick a title for the changelog entry at merge time, when the PR is fresh in your mind
• Likewise, you pick SemVer levels at merge time
• Pre-fills the release entry according to SemVer
• Less for us to fill in
• Can check the draft at any time to see how much is ready for release

Downsides:

• We don't update https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/blob/master/HISTORY.md any more, and the changelog isn't in Git (but I've had zero problems about this in other projects and it makes things so much easier)
• More automation to maintain (but I'm maintaining it in other projects so it's the same thing)

What do you think?

I'll add the labels if it's okay to go ahead.

[claudep]

Hi @hugov,

I'm never a big fan of automation, but feel free to go ahead, as you are doing most of the release job. I'm mostly doubtful about automatic HISTORY.md, as I always found manually-written changelogs more accurate. I guess we could always post-edit them, if really needed, right?

[hugovk]

In the suggested workflow, we stop updating HISTORY.md, but if you want to keep that we could add a step to manually copy the info from https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/releases into HISTORY.md?

We always get the opportunity to edit the release info at https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/releases before it goes out. For other projects, usually I don't, other than sometimes adjust the order so more important things are first. But I have sometimes added some more info there.

(As it happens, HISTORY.md has mostly just been PR titles anyway.)

[claudep]

Please go ahead, we'll see in practice what's the result will be. I'm fully trusting you 🤩

[hugovk]

Please go ahead, we'll see in practice what's the result will be. I'm fully trusting you 🤩

Thanks, let's see how it goes, and happy to make adjustments in the future!

https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/actions/runs/18468250067/job/52615477509?pr=631

stack: 'Error: Configuration file .github/release-drafter.yml is not found. The configuration file must reside in your default branch.\n' +

This error should go away after merge.

At least 1 approving review is required by reviewers with write access.

Please could you approve it?

[hugovk]

OK, it's now run and created a draft at https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/releases:

I'll go through those PRs and add changelog labels so they'll be sorted.

[hugovk]

Much better!

[claudep]

👍

[hugovk]

Right, then I clicked the pencil icon, checked if anything needed editing (I decided it was okay), and then clicked Publish.

That kicked off GitHub Actions to do the release: https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/actions/runs/18538580208

Which then did the usual Jazzband thing, and a couple of clicks later, it's now up on PyPI!

https://pypi.org/project/tablib/3.9.0/

[hugovk]

And after release, we can see new things appearing in the next draft:

https://github.com/jazzband/tablib/releases