Skip to content

Add information about the Plugin Release process #2

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
shvlv merged 3 commits into from
Jan 29, 2026
Merged

Add information about the Plugin Release process #2

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
3 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
8a1ec56
Add information about the Plugin Release process
shvlv Jan 26, 2026
55f171f
Add Table of Contents to README.md
shvlv Jan 26, 2026
720b986
Improve markup
shvlv Jan 29, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
49 changes: 49 additions & 0 deletions README.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2,6 +2,12 @@

GitHub Actions used within the product ecosystem

## Table of Contents

- [Usage](#usage)
- [Generate Plugin Zip GitHub Workflow](#generate-plugin-zip-github-workflow)
- [Plugin Release](#plugin-release)

## Usage

This is a work in progress. The goal is to replace the existing iThemes Build system with GitHub Actions.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -29,3 +35,46 @@ This GitHub workflow automates the process of generating a plugin zip file for d
8. Uploads the generated plugin zip as an artifact.

To trigger this workflow manually, navigate to the "Actions" tab in your repository, select the "Generate Plugin Zip" workflow, and click the "Run workflow" button. Fill in the required input fields and click the "Run workflow" button again.

## Plugin Release

The [create-release action](.github/actions/create-release/action.yml) automates the full release process for a
plugin. It is designed to be consumed within a plugin's own release workflow.

### Inputs

| Input | Required | Description |
|-------------------------|----------|---------------------------------------------|
| `plugin_slug` | Yes | The slug of the plugin to release |
| `ref` | Yes | Git commit reference (branch, tag, or hash) |
| `github_token` | Yes | GitHub token for creating releases |
| `plugin_deploy_key` | Yes | Plugin deploy key for api.ithemes.com |
| `aws_access_key_id` | Yes | AWS Access Key ID for S3 upload |
| `aws_secret_access_key` | Yes | AWS Secret Access Key for S3 upload |

### What It Does

1. Extracts version metadata (plugin version, minimum WP version, minimum PHP version) from the plugin's main PHP file.
2. Generates a distributable zip file using the `.distignore` file to exclude unnecessary files.
3. Creates a GitHub release tagged with the plugin version.
4. Uploads the zip file to the GitHub release as an asset.
5. Uploads the zip file to S3 (`downloads.ithemes.com`).
6. Notifies the Solid API about the new plugin version.

### What Happens Next

Solid
API [receives the webhook](https://github.com/ithemes/api-ithemes-com/blob/bf2db53c5ba5e0ac541386b9b5c14c9e5677505e/api/actions/action.product.deploy_plugin_update.php),
stores new plugin version metadata in the `pkg_version` database table and inform Adminber via API. The `updater`
library (included as submodule in the
plugin) refreshes the plugin
metadata [regularly](https://github.com/ithemes/updater/blob/e765b132b6e758a981153ec29d026e2efc780d92/api.txt#L17-L21)
from [Solid API](https://github.com/ithemes/api-ithemes-com/blob/9508fbe8e3e5b8e93601a15d27fb5c9fedc6ae7d/api/actions/action.updater.package_details.php).
If the plugin version
is [higher than the one currently installed](https://github.com/ithemes/updater/blob/4b1f9284b5feadc25ba1a0399c369efccbf39086/updates.php#L57-L181),
the library uses `transient_update_plugins` filter to provide information about the new plugin version
to [WordPress](https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/ecc9f15d4c66e80c5b99f1bb2455cd55614441c9/wp-admin/includes/update.php#L406-L419).
The plugin is updated using the WordPress update
mechanism ([S3 storage](https://github.com/ithemes/api-ithemes-com/blob/bf2db53c5ba5e0ac541386b9b5c14c9e5677505e/api/logic/logic.product.php#L91-L106)
is used for downloading
the [plugin ZIP](https://github.com/ithemes/api-ithemes-com/blob/9508fbe8e3e5b8e93601a15d27fb5c9fedc6ae7d/api/actions/action.updater.package_details.php#L217-L218)).