Automate the publication of your package using GitHub Actions

Overview

Teaching: 1 min
Exercises: 1 min

Questions

• What do I need to think about when creating a new repository on GitHub?

Objectives

• Know how to setup a GitHub repository according to IDS standards.

• Understand the benifits of templates and how they differ from forking/cloning.

• Understand how to allow the different levels of access to your repository.

The best way to make your application FAIR (Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable) is to publish it as a package in a popular repository. In the case of Python packages, the reference repository is PyPI (pronounce Pie-Pea-Eye).

You just need to register providing a valid email address and a username, then the project will be automatically created in PyPI, and you will be set as its owner if the chosen project name has not already been taken.

Automatically publish to PyPI

• Add a new job named publish. Similarly to the build Docker job, this job will be triggered only if a release/tag is pushed.
• Use the template Publish Python Package provided by GitHub in your repository Actions tab (which uses twine).
• Define PYPI_USERNAME and PYPI_PASSWORD Secrets 🙈

Solution

  publish:
    if: startsWith(github.event.ref, 'refs/tags')
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Set up Python
      uses: actions/setup-python@v2
      with:
        python-version: '3.x'
    - name: Install dependencies
      run: |
        python -m pip install --upgrade pip
        pip install setuptools wheel twine
    - name: Build and publish to PyPI
      if: startsWith(github.event.ref, 'refs/tags')
      env:
        TWINE_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.PYPI_USERNAME }}
        TWINE_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.PYPI_PASSWORD }}
      run: |
        python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
        twine upload dist/*

Publish a new release

• Publish a new release to trigger the newly created publish job and publish the first version of your package! 🏷️

Add version badge

• Add a badge getting the latest version from PyPI to your project README.md

![Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/my-package)

Key Points

• Use template provided by GitHub.

• Set PyPI credentials in GitHub Secrets.

• Add a version badge to display the latest version available on PyPI in your README.