Distribute a Static Binary with GitHub Releases

This guide will show you how you can push a set of static binaries to GitHub Releases using a flake-parts module.

Prerequisites:

  • You have configured your flake with flake-parts. It may be possible to adapt the instructions for mkHerculesCI.

  • You have packaged a static binary in perSystem.

  • You have set up an agent for the account that owns the repository.

  • You have added the repository to your Hercules CI installation.

1. Identify the path of the binary

The first step is to identify the binary that you want to distribute. In this example, we will use the hello binary from the hello package.

perSystem = { pkgs, lib, ... }: {
  packages.hello = pkgs.pkgsStatic.hello;
}

Usually, the binary can be picked out by lib.getExe, but otherwise, build the package with nix build .#hello and inspect the result symlink with ls.

In our example the package is accessible as config.packages.hello, and lib.getExe works for it.

If your package contains multiple binaries, you can use a string interpolation:

"${config.packages.hello}/bin/hello"

If your package consists of a single file that sits directly in the store, such as the output of pkgs.writeText, then you don’t need to add anything.

2. Declare the binary as a filesPerSystem item

When you have identified the path of the binary, you can declare it as a filesPerSystem item. This will make it available to the github-releases effect, which will run when a tag is pushed.

hercules-ci.github-releases.filesPerSystem = { config, system, lib, ... }: [
  {
    label = "hello-static-${system}";
    path = lib.getExe config.packages.hello;
  }
];
perSystem = { pkgs, ... }: {
  packages.hello = pkgs.pkgsStatic.hello;
};

3. Push

Your configuration is now ready to be pushed to a branch.

If the check passes, you can merge your branch, and the github-releases effect will publish your files when you push a tag.

Whenever you push a commit containing this configuration to a branch, Hercules CI will check it and make sure that the paths build.