ci: use release-please

[leo-desbureaux-tellae]

PR contents

• add a release-please action, that allows manually creating new releases by merging a PR
• rename VERSION into version.txt
• add an action that checks PRs' title to ensure that it uses the conventional commit format

Release Please

Presentation and usage

Release Please automates CHANGELOG generation, the creation of GitHub releases, and version bumps

Release Please will create and update a release PR when the develop branch receives pushes. When we are ready to release, simply merge the PR.

Commits on the develop branch have to follow the conventional commit convention. This can be done by squash-merging the PRs (highly recommended) and having the title in conventional commit style (hence the action that checks the PRs' titles). We can force the squash-merging and also modify the commit message in the settings, see here. Commits on the working branch don't have to be conventional commits.

Release Please config

See here for the config options of Release Please.

• release-type: simple (a repository with a version.txt and a CHANGELOG.md)

• versioning strategy: default (breaking changes bump the major version, features bump the minor version, bugfixes bump the patch version)

TODO

• Setup a Personal Access Token for the Eqasim repository (why ? see here). Proposed name: EQASIM_PAT.
• Force the squash-merging and modify the commit message in the settings ?

Closes #276
Closes #188

[leo-desbureaux-tellae]

@sebhoerl more details about what I say here

We can force the squash-merging and also modify the commit message in the settings

I think it can be useful, seeing that the default commit title and body are defined as

The default message uses the commit title and message if the pull request contains only 1 commit, or the pull request title and list of commits if the pull request contains 2 or more commits.

In my day to day uses, I always remove the list of commits that compose the merged branch, because they can be internal fixes of the branch, etc. And I fear that with the automatic changelog generation will include this body, and then make things a little messy.

But this is only Quality-Of-Life for people that merge the branches, and maybe you want to keep all options available. Up to you to decide if its relevant or not.

[leo-desbureaux-tellae]

I see in the changelog that we use the version without the preceeding "v". Should this PR be the occasion to remove it from the version number ? v1.2.0 -> 1.2.0

[sebhoerl]

Fine with me

[leo-desbureaux-tellae]

I changed the version number to "1.2.0".

I think the PR is quite ready, we just need this part that I cannot do:

Setup a Personal Access Token for the Eqasim repository (why ? see here). Proposed name: EQASIM_PAT.

[leo-desbureaux-tellae]

I started using release please in Starling, you can see what the PR looks like here