Release Names AutoIncrementing

Hi,

We use TFS Build to create Releases based on the build passing unit tests and integration tests.
So a successful build will automatically create a release using semantic versioning: 1.0.4-RC. This build has multiple nuget packages which are versioned together.

When someone goes through the Octopus Deploy website and creates a release, we want those releases to be differentiated from the releases created by our automated build. So ideally it’s name should be 1.0.20140503-Manual. They could then pick a different combination of nuget package versions.

The differentiation is important - as by policy we will only promote the versions of builds/packages which have gone through the CI and test regression suite (as there are interactions and dependencies between the packages).

Currently though, the release name defaults to incrementing the last release. And Release managers get lazy and hit the largest green button on the screen (without modifying the name). So we can’t differentiate between a release created by the build and one created manually.

Is there any way we can turn off this auto release increment and force release managers to enter a release name when going through the octopus website.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks for getting in touch! If you go to the Settings tab of your project, you can change the strategy that is used for release numbers, and tell it to use the same version number as one of the NuGet packages in your step. Since you version your packages, this means that when someone goes to create a release, the release matching the version number will already exist and they’ll be told to enter a new release number.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need any more information!

Paul

Hi Paul,

I can’t seem to find this elusive setting.
Can you give me the navigation path/screenshot. Is it in a new release?

I’ve attached a screenshot of our project settings tab.

Thanks,
Mark

Hi Paul,

I can’t seem to find this elusive setting.
Can you give us a screenshot or navigation help (Project -> Settings?)

Which version?

I’ve attached our screenshot of the project settings page.

Thanks,
Mark

Hi Mark,

Apologies - this feature was only recently added in the 2.4 (-pre) versions. We’re expecting to have 2.4.4-pre up today, and this is a likely release candidate from the 2.4 stream.

When you’re able to take the upgrade you can use a version template like:

#{Octopus.Version.LastMajor}.#{Octopus.Version.LastMinor}.#{Octopus.Version.NextPatch}-MANUAL

This will increment the last part of the previously-created release, and append -MANUAL.

We have a ticket down for 2.5 to add date/timestamp support in version fields: https://github.com/OctopusDeploy/Issues/issues/894

Regards,
Nick