Octopus Deploy

While not a build server, there are a few things to consider when using Octopus Deploy with GitVersion.

GitVersion follows continuous delivery versioning by default. This means builds will keep producing the same version with just metadata differing. For example, when you start a new release (say 1.0.0) with git flow, the branch will start with a semver like 1.0.0-beta.1+0, and the Octopus NuGet package will have a version of 1.0.0-beta0001. As you commit changes to this release branch the metadata of the semver will increase like so: 1.0.0-beta.1+1, 1.0.0-beta.1+2, etc. However, the version of the corresponding Octopus NuGet package will retain the same 1.0.0-beta0001 version you started with. The problem is Octopus Deploy will prevent you from deploying these revisions because it sees the same NuGet package version and thinks nothing has changed.

Because Octopus Deploy uses NuGet like this you cannot continue to push revisions in this manner without some intervention (or changes to GitVersion's configuration). To work around this problem we have two possible options:

The solutions to this issue are a bit different for GitHubFlow and GitFlow.

GitHubFlow Solutions

Promote to Octopus feed

The first option is to keep the continuous delivery default in GitVersion, depending on which build server you have this approach may or may not work for you. For instance in TFS Build vNext you cannot chain builds to publish artifacts built in one build in another.

  1. Your CI build creates the stable NuGet package

    • Do not publish this package into the Octopus nuget feed

  2. When you want to push a package into the Octopus deployment pipeline you trigger the second build

    • it will either take the package built from the first build in the chain (your CI build?) or rebuild
    • It will publish that package into the Octopus deploy feed
    • The build then is tagged with the version, this will cause GitVersion to increment the version

This means that CI builds are not available to Octopus deploy, there will be a manual build in your build server which pushes the package to Octopus deploy.

Tag to release

Another simple option is to tag a stable version to release, the basic idea is:

  1. GitVersion is set to continuous deployment mode, so main will create -ci.x pre-release builds
  2. CI Builds only create NuGet packages for stable builds
  3. You tag main with a stable version of the next version then push it
  4. The CI build triggers, GitVersion will always respect tags so you will get a stable version
  5. The stable package will be pushed to Octopus
  6. Because of the tag, then next build will be incremented and will be producing pre-release packages of the next build

Script to create the release

Here is an example script which could be used to tag the stable version, it uses GitVersion to calculate the version so you just run ./CreateRelease.ps1 and it will tag and push the tag. 

[CmdletBinding()]
param()

##### Config #####
# Path to GitVersion.exe
$gitversion = "tools\GitVersion\GitVersion.exe"
function Create-AdditionalReleaseArtifacts
{
 param( [string]$Version )

 # Put any custom release logic here (like generating release notes?)
}
### END Config ###

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
trap
{
   Pop-Location
   Write-Error "$_"
   Exit 1
}

Push-Location $PSScriptRoot

# Make sure there are no pending changes
$pendingChanges = & git status --porcelain
if ($pendingChanges -ne $null)
{
  throw 'You have pending changes, aborting release'
}

# Pull latest, fast-forward only so that it git stops if there is an error
& git fetch origin
& git checkout main
& git merge origin/main --ff-only

# Determine version to release
$output = & $gitversion /output json
$versionInfoJson = $output -join "`n"

$versionInfo = $versionInfoJson | ConvertFrom-Json
$stableVersion = $versionInfo.MajorMinorPatch

# Create release
Create-AdditionalReleaseArtifacts $stableVersion
# Always create a new commit because some CI servers cannot be triggered by just pushing a tag
& git commit -Am "Create release $stableVersion" --allow-empty
& git tag $stableVersion
if ($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) {
    & git reset --hard HEAD^
    throw "No changes detected since last release"
}

& git push origin main --tags

Pop-Location

Sample build script (build.ps1) 

[CmdletBinding()]
param()
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
trap
{
   Pop-Location
   Write-Error "$_"
   Exit 1
}
Push-Location $PSScriptRoot

# Tools
$gitversion = "tools\GitVersion\GitVersion.exe"
$octo = "tools\Octo\Octo.exe"
$nuget = "tools\NuGet\NuGet.exe"
# Calculate version
$output = & $gitversion /output json /l GitVersion.log /updateAssemblyInfo /nofetch
if ($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) {
    Write-Verbose "$output"
    throw "GitVersion Exit Code: $LASTEXITCODE"
}

$versionInfoJson = $output -join "`n"
Write-Host $versionInfoJson

$versionInfo = $versionInfoJson | ConvertFrom-Json
$nugetVersion = $versionInfo.NuGetVersion

#Build your project here
msbuild MyProj.sln

# Only create nuget package for stable
if ($versionInfo.PreReleaseTag -eq '')
{
    Write-Host
    Write-Host "Creating a release" -ForegroundColor Magenta

    # You probably want to specify output directory too
    & $nuget pack "src\myProj\MyProj.nuspec" -version $nugetVersion
}

Configure GitVersion to Increment Per Commit

As mentioned above, incrementing per commit means you will burn multiple versions per release. This might not be an issue for you, but can confuse consumers of your library as the version has semantic meaning.

GitHub