Go-Util-Build

Go-Util-Build is a simple build and release tool for Go on Github. It runs in a shell script task of a Github Action.

What Go-Util-Build Will Do

• with the same command build executable artifacts locally and on CI pipeline (currently: Github only)
• create a latest release when running in a CI pipeline
• create a tagged releases when pushing a version tag
• multi platform builds
• creating archives depending on target platform:
  • Windows: zip
  • Linux: tgz
• create sha256-digests of generated artifacts

What Go-Util-Build Won't Do

• build pure libraries (aka collections of packages that don't have any executable part)
• support CGO (For this you may have a look at XGO and its forks.)

Usage

Invocation and Module Aware Mode

You run Go-Util-Build like this:

go run github.com/soerenkoehler/go-Go-Util-Build@main [MAINPACKAGE] [OPTIONS...]

You may replace @main with a different version if desired. But you must provide a version to run in module aware mode (ref. Documentation of go run).

Local Build

Just run Go-Util-Build without the option --init. Then the following Go commands will run:

• go vet & go test for all packages in your module
• go build for the given main package

Go-Util-Build then creates a directory artifacts with:

• artifact directories and archive files for all specified targets
• a SHA256 file with checksums for all archives

Github Build

1. Prepare the workflow file

   Run Go-Util-Build locally with option --init:

   This will create a Github workflow file which will call Go-Util-Build in a Github action to build and release your module.

   The current workflow template file runs Go with GOPROXY=direct. If you do not want this, feel free to edit the workflow file.

2. Push a branch containing the workflow file to Github. Go-Util-Build will run and create a release latest.

   Warning: The tag latest will change with every push. While fetching or pulling tags your local Git client will fail with the error:

   ! [rejected] latest -> latest (would clobber existing tag)
   

   On the commandline you must add the option -f to update the changed tags:

   git fetch --tags -f
   git pull --tags -f
   

   Your IDE may automagically try to pull or fetch tags in the background when synchronizing your local repository. You should switch off such behaviour and fetch tags manually:

   • In VSCode change the setting git.pullTags to false.
   • In other IDEs consult your friendly IDE manual.

3. Push a tag in the semver format v<MAJOR>.<MINOR>.<PATCH> (or create it in the Github UI). Go-Util-Build will run and create a release for this tag.

Options

• If MAINPACKAGE is omitted the current directory . will be used.

• --artifact-name NAME Changes the package name part of the created artifacts.

• --targets TARGET-SPEC, ... Specifies the target platforms to build. Currently supported are:

  • windows-amd64
  • linux-amd64
  • linux-arm64
  • linux-arm

• --skip-upload Suppresses the artifact upload (e.g. if you build a library which will be imported rather than an application executable).

• --init Creates (or replaces) a Github workflow file with the given options except --init itself.

Artifact Naming

Artifacts will be named as follows:

Release Type	Artifact Name
Local	MAINPACKAGE-DATE-TIME-PLATFORM
Github Latest	MAINPACKAGE-DATE-TIME-HASH-PLATFORM
Github Named	MAINPACKAGE-VERSION

Go-Util-Build also injects the version string as main._Version into the build.