Release and publish a new PHP SDK version automatically: a step-by-step guide

1. Create a Packagist account and register your SDK.
2. Store your Packagist username and API token securely in GitHub.
3. Set up a GitHub Action that releases and publishes each new SDK version.

1. Open the Profile section on Packagist. Your username sits at the top of the page. Click Show API Token and copy the token.
2. Open your project on GitHub. Go to Settings > Security > Secrets and Variables > Actions and click "New repository secret".
3. Enter PACKAGIST_USERNAME in the Name field.
4. Enter your Packagist username in the Secret field. Click "Add secret" to confirm.
5. Create one more secret. This time enter PACKAGIST_TOKEN in the Name field and paste the token from Step 1 into the Secret field. Add this secret.

1. In your GitHub repository, go to Settings > Actions > General and check the option "Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests".

1. In the root folder of your project, create a directory .github/workflows/. This is where GitHub Action configuration files belong.
2. In this directory, create a new YAML file. Name it release-and-publish.yml.
3. Copy the following code into your configuration file:

# This workflow opens and updates a pull request with a new package version
# based on code changes. Merging the pull request updates the version in
# composer.json, updates the changelog and creates release tags.
# This workflow also publishes the package into the Packagist repository after
# a new version has been released.

# https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-please-action

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

permissions:
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write

name: release-please

jobs:
  release-please:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: google-github-actions/release-please-action@v3.7.10
        with:
          release-type: php
          package-name: release-please-action
          pull-request-title-pattern: "chore(release): ${version}"
          pull-request-header: ":robot: Merge this PR to release a new version"

  publish-package:
    # after merging the pull request, a release tag first has to be created
    # in the release-please job above, before the publish job starts
    needs: release-please
    if: contains(github.event.head_commit.message, 'chore(release)')
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3.5.3
      - uses: hotaruma/packagist-sync@v1.0.1
        with:
          packagist-username: ${{ secrets.PACKAGIST_USERNAME }}
          api-token: ${{ secrets.PACKAGIST_TOKEN }}

1. Make sure your composer.json includes the version property (for example "version": "1.0.0"). release-please updates this property automatically every time you merge a version pull request, so the current SDK version is easy to read straight from the code.

2. Commit these changes and push them to GitHub. The workflow is now set up. The next time someone adds something releasable with a conventional commit message (a fix: or feat: prefix), release-please opens a pull request. As you add more code, it updates the pull request automatically. When you are ready to ship a new version of your SDK, merge the pull request. The version is released and the updated SDK is published to Packagist.

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