Get current date and time in GitHub workflows

Question

I have a GitHub workflow for releasing nightly snapshots of the repository. It uses the create-release action. This is how the workflow file looks right now:

name: Release Nightly Snapshot  on:   schedule:   - cron: "0 0 * * *"  jobs:   build:     name: Release Nightly Snapshot     runs-on: ubuntu-latest     steps:       - name: Checkout master Branch         uses: actions/checkout@v2         with:           ref: 'master'       - name: Create Release         id: nightly-snapshot         uses: actions/create-release@latest         env:           GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}         with:           tag_name: 'nightly snapshot'           release_name: 'nightly snapshot'           draft: false           prerelease: false 

I want tag_name and release_name to use the current date and time, instead of hard-coded values. However, I couldn't find any documentation on it. How should I do it?

Answer 1

From this post you can create a step that set its output with the value $(date +'%Y-%m-%d')

Then use this output using ${{ steps.date.outputs.date }}. The following show an example for environment variables and for inputs :

on: [push, pull_request] name: build jobs:   build:     name: Example     runs-on: ubuntu-latest     steps:       - name: Get current date         id: date         run: echo "::set-output name=date::$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')"       - name: Test with environment variables         run: echo $TAG_NAME - $RELEASE_NAME         env:           TAG_NAME: nightly-tag-${{ steps.date.outputs.date }}           RELEASE_NAME: nightly-release-${{ steps.date.outputs.date }}       - name: Test with input         uses: actions/hello-world-docker-action@master         with:           who-to-greet: Mona-the-Octocat-${{ steps.date.outputs.date }} 

Outputs :

* Test with environment variables nightly-tag-2020-03-31 - nightly-release-2020-03-31  * Test with input Hello Mona-the-Octocat-2020-03-31 

Answer 2

Here's another way to do this via environment variables (from this post):

name: deploy on: [push] jobs:   build:     runs-on: ubuntu-latest     steps:       - name: Set current date as env variable         run: echo "NOW::$(date +'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')" >> $GITHUB_ENV       - name: Echo current date         run: echo $NOW 

This sets the date as an environment variable, which is useful if you want to consume it in scripts / programs in subsequent steps.