CI releases (GitHub Actions + GitHub Releases)

Firmware binaries are built by GitHub Actions and published as GitHub Release assets. GitHub Releases are the source of truth for distribution (the web flasher reads the release assets), so new bins are not committed into prebuilt/ anymore.

How to cut a release

Push a tag on the track you want. The matching workflow builds the firmwares, publishes a GitHub Release with the .bin files attached, and prunes old releases on that track (keeping the newest 5).

Track	Tag prefix	Example tag	Workflow	Builds
Companion	companion-	companion-v1.16.0.1	build-companion-firmwares	meshcomod boards only: V4, V3, Wireless Paper, Xiao (*_companion_radio_usb_tcp)
Room server	room-server-	room-server-v1.16.0.1	build-room-server-firmwares	*_room_server
Repeater	—	(manual workflow_dispatch)	build-repeater-firmwares	*_repeater_tcp

The touch UI firmware (Heltec V4 TFT, LilyGo T-Deck) is built and released from the wadamesh repo, not here. This repo is core / companion only.

# example: cut the companion v1.16.0.1 release
git tag companion-v1.16.0.1
git push origin companion-v1.16.0.1

The tag suffix becomes FIRMWARE_VERSION (e.g. companion-v1.16.0.1 → v1.16.0.1), so the in-firmware version string and the release name match the tag.

Rolling retention

After each release the workflow runs scripts/ci/prune-releases.sh <prefix> 5, which keeps the newest 5 releases on that track and deletes the older ones — the GitHub Release, its git tag, and the attached assets. This keeps the release list and the tag namespace small while still allowing rollback to the last few versions.

To preview what would be pruned without deleting anything, run the workflow via Actions → (workflow) → Run workflow after setting DRY_RUN=1, or locally:

DRY_RUN=1 scripts/ci/prune-releases.sh companion- 5

(Requires the GitHub CLI authenticated against the repo.)

Migration notes

• The legacy flow committed bins to prebuilt/ and prebuilt/releases/<track>/<version>/ and logged them in RELEASES.md. That flow is retired for new releases; the large committed-bin tree can be cleaned up separately (its size lives in git history, so shrinking the clone needs a history rewrite — out of scope here).
• The web flasher (meshcomod-client) must read release assets from the GitHub Releases API (latest per track) instead of repo paths — tracked as the flasher-side follow-up to this change.