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Windows publishing

Notey publishes Windows releases from v* Git tags. Release builds use MinVer so assembly and package versions come from the tag, and CI packages the Windows publish output with Velopack.

The release workflow intentionally checks that the tagged commit is reachable from origin/main. Git tags are independent refs, so the workflow cannot literally mean "tag pushed to main" without this guard.

Versioning​

Release tags must start with v and use a SemVer version:

v0.2.0
v1.0.0
v1.0.0-rc.1

MinVer is configured in Directory.Build.props with MinVerTagPrefix set to v. The workflow resolves MinVerVersion during the release and fails if it does not match the pushed tag without the v prefix.

Publish profile​

The app includes src/Notey.App/Properties/PublishProfiles/win-x64-folder.pubxml.

Important settings:

  • RuntimeIdentifier: win-x64
  • SelfContained: true
  • PublishSingleFile: true
  • PublishReadyToRun: true
  • PublishTrimmed: false

Trimming is disabled because desktop UI frameworks and configuration binding frequently rely on reflection.

Publish script​

./scripts/publish-windows.ps1

The script writes output to artifacts/publish/Notey-win-x64 unless another output path is provided.

Installer packaging​

The release workflow packages the published folder with Velopack:

./scripts/package-windows.ps1 -Version 0.2.0

The packaging script expects vpk on PATH. CI installs it with:

dotnet tool install --global vpk --version 0.0.1298

Installer and release/feed assets are written to artifacts/release. The release/feed metadata is generated now so future in-app update support can reuse the same GitHub Release assets; Notey does not yet check for updates inside the app.

GitHub release workflow​

.github/workflows/release.yml runs when a tag matching v* is pushed. It:

  1. Checks out full history and tags.
  2. Fetches origin/main.
  3. Fails if the tag commit is not reachable from origin/main.
  4. Restores, builds, and tests the solution in Release configuration.
  5. Publishes the win-x64 folder build.
  6. Packages Velopack installer and release/feed assets.
  7. Uploads workflow artifacts and publishes the GitHub Release.

If the main-branch guard fails, move the intended commit onto main, delete and recreate the tag there, then push the corrected tag.

The normal CI workflow still builds and tests pull requests. Manual workflow_dispatch runs can still publish the folder artifact without creating a GitHub Release.