v2.3.1

v2.3.1 – Compose Validation and Swarm Error Detection

This release enhances validation and error handling for Docker Compose and Docker Swarm deployments. It also includes important bug fixes and script improvements for better POSIX compliance.

What’s New

• Docker Compose file validation

  • Validates docker-compose files using docker compose config
  • Helps catch syntax errors and misconfigurations early in the deployment process

• Improved Docker Swarm deploy checks

  • Parses docker stack deploy output for common errors, including:
    • Undefined volumes
    • Unsupported options
    • Missing files
    • General CLI errors

What’s Fixed

• Absolute path requirement for deploy_file

  • Resolved a bug where the deployment file required an absolute path unnecessarily

• POSIX compliance improvements

  • Refactored shell scripts for better compatibility:
    • Replaced [[ ... ]] with [ ... ]
    • Used = instead of == for string comparisons
    • Rewrote || true patterns using proper conditionals

Stability and Maintenance

• No breaking changes
• Fully compatible with workflows using v2
• Improves reliability and portability across environments

Tags

• v2.3.1: Latest feature release (recommended)
• v2: Stable major version tag for production workflows

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Need help? Check the README or suggest a feature or improvement.

v2.3.0

v2.3.0 – Environment Variables Support and Backup Path Fix

This release adds support for dynamic environment variables via the env_vars input and fixes an issue with backing up the Docker Compose file during deployment.

What’s New

• env_vars input for dynamic configuration
  • Allows setting environment variables via workflow inputs
  • Automatically creates and uploads a .env file during deployment
  • Currently supported only in Docker Compose mode

What’s Fixed

• Docker Compose file backup path
  • Fixed an issue where the deployment file wasn’t correctly backed up due to a path resolution error
  • Ensures consistent file handling before upload

Stability and Maintenance

• No breaking changes
• Fully compatible with existing workflows using v2
• Improves flexibility for environment-specific deployments

Tags

• v2.3.0: Latest feature release (recommended)
• v2: Stable major version tag for production workflows

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Need help? Check the README or suggest a feature or improvement.

v2.2.1

v2.2.1 – Fix for Script Path Resolution and Executable Scripts

This patch release resolves a script execution issue in GitHub Actions by correcting how paths are resolved and ensuring all internal scripts are properly marked as executable.

What’s Fixed

• Script path resolution in GitHub Actions

  • Fixed an issue where entrypoint.sh could not locate scripts in the ./scripts/ directory when run as part of a composite action
  • Now uses GITHUB_ACTION_PATH (with a fallback) to consistently locate and run internal scripts

• Executable permissions for scripts

  • All scripts in the ./scripts directory are now explicitly marked as executable
  • Prevents failures caused by missing execution permissions during CI runs

Stability and Maintenance

• No breaking changes
• Fully compatible with existing workflows using v2
• Improves cross-platform support and reliability for GitHub-hosted runners

Tags

• v2.2.1: Latest patch release (recommended)
• v2: Stable major version tag for production workflows

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Need help? Check the README or suggest a feature or improvement.

v2.2.0

v2.2.0 – Targeted Docker Compose Restarts

This release adds support for more flexible control when restarting services in Docker Compose deployments. Users can now restart specific services without affecting the full stack, helping to reduce downtime and speed up deployments.

What’s New

• Targeted Service Restarts
  • compose_target_services: Restart only selected services (e.g. web,worker)
  • compose_build: Build images before starting services (if needed)
  • compose_no_deps: Skip restarting any linked (dependent) services
  • Useful for partial deployments and larger setups where restarting everything isn’t necessary

Improvements

• Updated example workflow in the README to show how the new options work in practice
• Refined descriptions for several inputs to make configuration easier to understand

Stability and Maintenance

• No breaking changes
• All new inputs are optional — existing setups will continue to work without any updates
• Designed for production use, but also useful in staging or test environments

Tags

• v2.2.0: Latest feature release (recommended)
• v2: Stable version for current and future Bash workflows

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Need help? Check the README, open an issue, or suggest a new feature.

v2.1.0

v2.1.0 – Modular Rewrite & SSH Security Features

This release introduces a full modular rewrite of the deployment logic and adds several SSH security-related options, improving flexibility, security and maintainability across Compose and Stack deployments.

What’s New

• Modular Shell Script Structure
  The deployment logic has been split into separate, focused scripts. This makes the action easier to understand, maintain and build upon.

• Passphrase Support for SSH Keys
  Users can now provide an ssh_key_passphrase to support encrypted private keys using ssh-agent.

• SSH Host Key Verification
  The action now supports:

  • ssh_known_hosts: full OpenSSH-compatible known_hosts content
  • fingerprint: a single-line public key for quick verification
  • If neither is provided, the host key is fetched via ssh-keyscan with a security warning

• SSH Timeout Configuration
  A timeout input has been added to limit SSH connection attempts, helping prevent hanging builds in CI environments.

• Conditional Compose Image Pulling
  Users can now set compose_pull to false to skip docker-compose pull, useful for offline or pre-pulled deployments.

Improvements

• All deployment logic has been restructured for clarity and reusability
• Docker Compose and Stack flows are now handled by separate scripts with correct environment and path handling
• More accurate and consistent logging throughout the deploy process

Stability and Maintenance

• Improved SSH connection handling with ConnectTimeout, ServerAliveInterval and ServerAliveCountMax
• All changes are backwards compatible — no breaking changes introduced

Tags

• v2.1.0: Latest release (recommended)
• v2: Major version tag for stable workflows

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Need help? Check the README, open an issue, or start a feature discussion.

v2.0.1

v2.0.1 – Stack Path Fix, Tests & Code Analysis

This patch release resolves a critical deployment issue for Docker Swarm (stack mode) and introduces automated testing and static code analysis into the CI pipeline.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed path handling for docker stack deploy
  The deployment process now correctly extracts only the filename from deploy_file, preventing issues with broken paths such as tests/stack/docker-stack.yml on the remote server.

What’s Added

• Deploy Test Workflow
  A GitHub Actions workflow has been added to test both compose and stack deployments using test .env, docker-compose.yml and docker-stack.yml files.

• ShellCheck Integration
  All shell scripts (including entrypoint.sh) are now statically analysed using ShellCheck to identify syntax issues and encourage best practices.

• README Improvements
  The README has been restructured for better clarity, with updated examples and a test status badge.

Stability and Maintenance

• General clean-up and minor reliability improvements in script flow and debug output
• No breaking changes in this release

Tags

• v2.0.1: Latest patch release (recommended)
• v2: Major version tag for stable workflows

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Need help? Check the README, open an issue, or try the Go-based version for faster deployments.

v2.0.0

v2.0.0 – Breaking Changes & Rollback Support

This major release introduces automatic rollback, improved network validation and simplifies configuration by replacing deprecated inputs.

Breaking Changes

• Replaced stack_files and compose_files with deploy_file
  • Now accepts only a single file
  • Any supporting files (e.g. .env, config.yml) should be moved to extra_files

Migration Example

Before (v1.x):

stack_files: docker-stack.yml,docker-stack-dev.yml
extra_files: .env,config.yml

After (v2.x):

deploy_file: docker-stack.yml
extra_files: .env,config.yml

New Features

• Automatic Rollback on Failed Deployments

  • Swarm Mode: Uses docker service update --rollback
  • Compose Mode: Restores the last known good deploy_file if services fail to start

• Improved Network Management

  • Validates existing Docker networks and warns if the driver does not match
  • Verifies overlay driver and issues warnings if Swarm is inactive
  • Adds support for docker_network_attachable

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Removed the need for sudo when creating the project_path directory
• Switched SSH command execution from here-doc (EOF) to bash -s to suppress MOTD messages
• Improved Docker Compose version detection:
  • Supports both docker-compose (v1) and docker compose (v2)

Tags

• v2.0.0: Latest major release with breaking changes
• v2: Stable tag for latest v2.x features

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Important: Workflows using stack_files or compose_files must migrate to deploy_file to continue functioning with v2.x.

v1.0.1

v1.0.1 – Fixes and Improvements

This patch release includes important fixes to ensure reliable script execution and proper SSH file transfers.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed executable permissions
  Ensured entrypoint.sh has the correct executable flag so it can run without manual intervention.

• Corrected SCP port flag
  Updated scp to use the correct uppercase -P flag for specifying the SSH port (instead of lowercase -p).

Tags

• v1.0.1: Latest patch release
• v1: Recommended stable tag for GitHub Actions

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Recommended upgrade if you encountered Permission denied errors or issues with non-default SSH ports.

v1.0.0

v1.0.0 – Initial Release

This is the first stable release of the original Bash-based Docker Deploy GitHub Action, built to automate remote deployments over SSH with support for both Docker Compose and Docker Swarm.

Features

• Seamless Remote Deployment
  Uploads Docker Compose or Swarm stack files directly to your server via SSH and deploys automatically.

• Automatic Project Setup
  Creates the target directory if it doesn’t exist, sets 750 permissions and ensures correct ownership.

• Additional File Support
  Uploads extra files such as .env, traefik.yml, nginx.conf, or other custom configuration files.

• Private Registry Login
  Supports secure Docker registry authentication (e.g., Docker Hub, GitHub Container Registry).

• Network Management
  Creates missing Docker networks using specified drivers (bridge, overlay, etc.), with attachable support in Swarm.

• Reliable Deployment Modes
  Supports:

  • Docker Compose via docker-compose up
  • Docker Swarm via docker stack deploy

• Service Health Verification
  Ensures services start successfully and remain healthy after deployment.

• Optional Cleanup
  Can optionally perform a Docker system prune (removing unused images, containers, volumes, etc.) after deployment.

• Detailed Logs and Security
  Provides structured logs with per-step output. Automatically deletes SSH key after deployment for added security.

Requirements

• Docker must be installed on the remote server.
• SSH access to the server (key-based authentication required).
• Docker Compose is required for compose mode.
• Docker Swarm must be initialised and the server must be a manager for stack mode.

Tags

• v1.0.0: First stable release
• v1: Latest stable major version (recommended for use in GitHub Actions)

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Need help? Check the README or open an issue. Contributions are welcome!