swift_binaries_gh.md

This guide will help you create new releases on GitHub for your Swift Packages that host binary executable assets. This is a multistep process that consists of:

• Staging a draft release on Github
• Uploading your binary artifacts to the draft release
• Updating the Package.swift to point to the uploaded assets in a staging branch
• Finalizing the Github release

Setup

• Install the GitHub CLI
• brew install gh
• Install jq
• brew install jq

Step 1: Create a GitHub Draft Release

• Navigate to your repository on GitHub.com

• Click on the Releases on your main GitHub page for your repo.

• Click Draft a new release

• Add a tag for your release (e.g. 1.0.0) and remember this value

• Ensure the target is your primary branch (e.g. main or develop, etc…)

• Drag each of your binary artifacts to the box that says Attach binaries by dropping them here or selecting them

• Click Save Draft … DO NOT PUBLISH THIS RELEASE YET

Step 3: Updating Package.swift

• Navigate to your cloned copy of the repository on your computer via the Terminal.
• Create and checkout a new branch for the Package.swift updates
• Run the following command, replacing <release tag> with tag value created in the previous step.

gh release view <release tag> --json assets | \

jq '.assets[] | { name: .name, url: (.apiUrl + ".zip") }'

Here is an example of the above command with actual output:
gh release view 1.1.2 --json assets | \

jq '.assets[] | { name: .name, url: (.apiUrl + ".zip") }'

{

"name": "MyBinaryLibrary.1.1.2.xcframework.zip",

"url": "https://api.github.com/repos/your_org/your-lib/releases/assets/93024549.zip"

}

{

"name": "MyBinaryLibrary.1.1.2.xcframework.zip",

"url": "https://api.github.com/repos/your_org/your-lib/releases/assets/93028050.zip"

}

• Update each binary target in your Package.swift with the url values in the output above.
• Ensure you update the checksum in Package.swift, if needed, using the value produced with this command:
• swift package compute-checksum MyBinaryLibrary.1.1.2.xcframework.zip
• To test that your Package.swift is valid, open the package in Xcode and it should successfully resolve the package with the new binary files.
• Commit and push your changes
• Create a pull request and follow standard review policies for your package
• Merge the pull request

Step 4: Finalize the release

• Return to your draft release
• Ensure the tag is set to the value you expect and the target branch is pointing to your main branch
• Press the Publish Release button.

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