CI Configuration

Configure CI to run semantic-release by following two requirements: run it only after all tests pass, and configure the authentication needed to publish releases.

Choose your CI Service

Start by choosing your CI service. Each guide shows provider-specific syntax for applying the same core requirements on this page.

• GitHub Actions
• GitLab CI
• CircleCI workflows
• Travis CI
• Jenkins CI

Note

Whether your CI service is listed above or not, follow the same requirements below: run semantic-release only after all tests succeeded and configure authentication. Then adapt those steps to your provider’s syntax.

For details about the CI environment variables that semantic-release detects, see env-ci.

Run semantic-release only after all tests succeeded

The semantic-release command must be executed only after all the tests in the CI build pass. If the build runs multiple jobs (for example to test on multiple Operating Systems or Node versions) the CI has to be configured to guarantee that the semantic-release command is executed only after all jobs are successful.

Authentication

semantic-release requires authentication to push to your repository and publish releases. Several authentication methods are available depending on your CI service and repository hosting platform.

Note

Prefer short-lived credentials over long-lived secrets when your platform supports them (for example, OIDC-based trusted publishing or GitHub App installation tokens).

Push access to the remote repository

semantic-release requires push access to the project Git repository in order to create Git tags. The Git authentication can be set with one of the following environment variables:

Variable	Description
GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub token for repository authentication. In GitHub Actions, the workflow-provided GITHUB_TOKEN is automatically available; prefer this or a GitHub App installation token when available; use a personal access token only when required.
GL_TOKEN or GITLAB_TOKEN	A GitLab personal access token.
BB_TOKEN or BITBUCKET_TOKEN	A Bitbucket personal access token.
BB_TOKEN_BASIC_AUTH or BITBUCKET_TOKEN_BASIC_AUTH	A Bitbucket personal access token with basic auth support. For clarification user:token has to be the value of this env.
GIT_CREDENTIALS	URL encoded Git username and password in the format <username>:<password>. The username and password must each be individually URL encoded, not the : separating them.

Alternatively the Git authentication can be set up via SSH keys.

For GitHub releases, see @semantic-release/github authentication and permissions.

Authentication for plugins

Most semantic-release plugins require setting up authentication in order to publish to a package manager registry. The default @semantic-release/npm and @semantic-release/github plugins require the following environment variables:

Variable	Description
NPM_TOKEN	npm token for publishing to npm. Trusted publishing is the preferred approach when publishing to the official registry. A token is required when publishing to alternative registries. See CI configuration recipes for setup options.
GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub authentication token for publishing releases. See CI configuration recipes for setup options.

See each plugin’s documentation for the environment variables required.

The authentication token/credentials have to be made available in the CI service via environment variables.

See CI configuration recipes for examples of how to configure environment variables in your CI service.

Note: The environment variables GH_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN, GL_TOKEN and GITLAB_TOKEN can be used for both the Git authentication and the API authentication required by @semantic-release/github and @semantic-release/gitlab.