Issues creating a CD based release on Github (WPF .NET 5.0) - continuous-integration

Question

I'm trying to put together a CI / CD pipeline for GitHub and strugglign with attaching my build artifact to the release. Here's my ci.yml
name: CI
on:
push:
branches: [ main ]
pull_request:
branches: [ main ]
workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
Build:
runs-on: windows-latest
env:
BuildPath: ${{ github.workspace }}\BuildTesting\bin\Release\net5.0-windows
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v2
- name: Setup .NET SDK
uses: actions/setup-dotnet#v1.8.1
with:
dotnet-version: 5.0.x
- name: Install dependencies
run: dotnet restore
- name: Build
run: dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore
- name: Upload a Build Artifact
uses: actions/upload-artifact#v2.2.4
with:
name: thingy
path: ${{ github.workspace }}\BuildTesting\bin\Release\net5.0-windows
retention-days: 1
That runs well and I get a release artifact:
I was under the impression I'd be able to download that existing artifact but I couldn't get my head around why actions/download-artifact isn't downloading anything. So I found another article and in their cd step they were re-building, so I figured that in doing that at least I'd have a fresh build in the cd workflow to pull from. So I create a release triggered on tag push events. I can't use most zip utilities becuase they don't run on windows. I have to user windows-latest as the target framework for WPF desktop applications has to be net5.0-windows and using ubuntu-latest it fails. I tried papeloto/action-zip#v1 and in one case I managed to get a zip file which then attached to the release successfully but was only 22 bytes, so empty once I downloaded it. Here's my cd.yml:
name: CD
on:
push:
tags:
- '*'
jobs:
Release:
runs-on: windows-latest
env:
BuildPath: ${{ github.workspace }}\BuildTesting\bin\Release\net5.0-windows
ZipName: TheThing.zip
steps:
# Build the solution
- uses: actions/checkout#v2
- name: Setup .NET SDK
uses: actions/setup-dotnet#v1.8.1
with:
dotnet-version: 5.0.x
- name: Install dependencies
run: dotnet restore
- name: Build
run: dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore
- name: Zip the release
uses: << What should I use to zip ${{ env.BuildPath }} ? >>
# Create a Release on the GitHub project
- name: Create release
id: create_release
uses: actions/create-release#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # This token is provided by Actions, you do not need to create your own token
with:
tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
release_name: ${{ github.ref }}
draft: false
prerelease: false
# Upload the Build Artifact to the Release
- name: Update release asset
id: upload-release-asset
uses: actions/upload-release-asset#v1
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
upload_url: ${{ steps.create_release.outputs.upload_url }} # This pulls from the CREATE RELEASE step above, referencing it's ID to get its outputs object, which include a `upload_url`. See this blog post for more info: https://jasonet.co/posts/new-features-of-github-actions/#passing-data-to-future-steps
asset_path: .\${{ env.ZipName }}
asset_name: ${{ env.ZipName }}
asset_content_type: application/zip
Can anyone please recommend a GitHub action for zipping a folder that will work for windows-latest ... or another approach?
Long term I want to go with semantic versioning but GitVersion overwhelmed me last time I tried, granted I'd never working with yml builds before. I'd like to keep this as simple as possible as I'm starting to grok the basics of what's going on and once I get past this I'll start looking into GitVersion.
I'm using a test repository located here so you can see the whole thing.

Answer 1

You may use PowerShell to zip your artifacts using 7Zip. Please check my repository in GitHub. That compile a WPF app, compress the artifacts, create a prerelease and upload files under that release.