Confusing documentation about tags #366

GovindarajanNagarajan-TomTom · 2023-12-15T16:09:29Z

GovindarajanNagarajan-TomTom
Dec 15, 2023

Hi,
The Readme, while detailed, IMO, misses the core point of how metadata-action deciphers the output tag. I am running into some issues using this action locally in our team's repo and would like some clarifications.

The example in the README.md provides the following tags definition:

          tags: |
            type=ref,event=branch
            type=ref,event=pr
            type=semver,pattern={{version}}
            type=semver,pattern={{major}}.{{minor}}
            type=sha

I am afraid I don't understand this very well.

Is the type of the output tag the ref , if the event that triggered this workflow is a push to the branch ?
why are there 2 patterns specified for semver ?

            type=semver,pattern={{version}}
            type=semver,pattern={{major}}.{{minor}}

The docs seem to imply that semver is the type of tagging that happens by default when a new tag is created. Is it true ?
If so, why are 2 patterns specified ? Are they both used, or is it more of a prioritization over another ?

And is there an inherent prioritization to the rules defined for the tags ? If so , it is ascending or descending ?

Answered by crazy-max

Dec 15, 2023

Is the type of the output tag the ref , if the event that triggered this workflow is a push to the branch ?

ref tag type is explained here https://github.com/docker/metadata-action#typeref. You also have examples of what to expect in the table below:

This type handles Git ref (or reference) for the following events:

branch ; eg. refs/heads/master

tag ; eg. refs/tags/v1.0.0

pr ; eg. refs/pull/318/merge

Event Ref Output

pull_req 8000 uest refs/pull/2/merge pr-2

push refs/heads/master master

push refs/heads/my/branch my-branch

push tag refs/tags/v1.2.3 v1.2.3

push tag refs/tags/v2.0.8-beta.67 v2.0.8-beta.67

workflow_dispatch refs/heads/master master

Ref is set by GitHub…

View full answer

crazy-max · 2023-12-15T16:48:54Z

crazy-max
Dec 15, 2023
Maintainer

Is the type of the output tag the ref , if the event that triggered this workflow is a push to the branch ?

ref tag type is explained here https://github.com/docker/metadata-action#typeref. You also have examples of what to expect in the table below:

This type handles Git ref (or reference) for the following events:

branch ; eg. refs/heads/master

tag ; eg. refs/tags/v1.0.0

pr ; eg. refs/pull/318/merge

Event Ref Output

pull_request refs/pull/2/merge pr-2

push refs/heads/master master

push refs/heads/my/branch my-branch

push tag refs/tags/v1.2.3 v1.2.3

push tag refs/tags/v2.0.8-beta.67 v2.0.8-beta.67

workflow_dispatch refs/heads/master master

Ref is set by GitHub Actions depending on the triggered Event.

2. why are there 2 patterns specified for semver ?

Also explained in https://github.com/docker/metadata-action#typesemver

pattern defaults to Git tag if empty.

The docs seem to imply that semver is the type of tagging that happens by default when a new tag is created. Is it true ?

Yes

If so, why are 2 patterns specified ? Are they both used, or is it more of a prioritization over another ?

Because you might want to push multiple tags with one being <major>.<minor> and another one <version>. This is useful to push <major>.<minor> tag so user consuming your image can just use v1.0 without worrying about updating the image ref when patched releases are pushed (v1.0.1, v1.0.2, ...).

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Event	Ref	Output
`pull_req 8000 uest`	`refs/pull/2/merge`	`pr-2`
`push`	`refs/heads/master`	`master`
`push`	`refs/heads/my/branch`	`my-branch`
`push tag`	`refs/tags/v1.2.3`	`v1.2.3`
`push tag`	`refs/tags/v2.0.8-beta.67`	`v2.0.8-beta.67`
`workflow_dispatch`	`refs/heads/master`	`master`

Confusing documentation about tags #366

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GovindarajanNagarajan-TomTom Dec 15, 2023

Replies: 1 comment

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crazy-max Dec 15, 2023 Maintainer

GovindarajanNagarajan-TomTom
Dec 15, 2023

crazy-max
Dec 15, 2023
Maintainer