FrogPak releaser

Builds your app's Flatpak for x86_64 and aarch64 and publishes GitHub releases that FrogPak Ponds pick up. Bump the version in your metainfo, push, and the tag, release and bundles follow.

Optional: a Pond only needs releases with .flatpak files it can match, however they were built.

Use it

Copy examples/release.yml to .github/workflows/release.yml in your app repository.

To release, add a <release> to the top of your metainfo's <releases> and push it to your default branch:

<release version="1.2.0" date="2026-11-03">
  <description>
    <p>What changed, shown in software centers and on the GitHub release.</p>
  </description>
</release>

Without metainfo, push a tag such as v1.2.0 instead.

What runs when:

Event	Result
Push to the default branch, new metainfo version	Checks, build, tag, release, Ponds triggered
Push to the default branch, version already released	Checks
Push of a v* tag	Checks, build, release, Ponds triggered
Pull request or other branch	Checks
Manual run	Checks, build, bundles as workflow artifacts

Versions with a hyphen (1.2.0-rc1) and metainfo releases of type development become pre-releases, which Ponds ignore.

Bundles are named <app ID>-<arch>.flatpak, so https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases/latest/download/<app ID>-x86_64.flatpak always points at the newest release.

Inputs

Input	Default	Purpose
manifest	found automatically	Manifest path, when build-aux/, flatpak/, packaging/ and the root hold none or several
metainfo	found automatically	Metainfo path, when several files match the app ID
version-files	none	Lines of path: regex; each regex's first group must equal the version
tag-prefix	v	Prefix of release tags
create-tags	true	Release a new metainfo version by creating its tag. Set false in a mirror; see Mirrored repositories
arches	x86_64 aarch64	Architectures to build
runners	ubuntu-latest, ubuntu-26.04-arm	Lines of arch: runner label
ponds	none	Pond repositories (owner/repo), one per line, to trigger after a release; lines starting with # are ignored

Secret POND_TOKEN: a fine-grained token with Actions: Read and write on the Pond repositories. Without it, Ponds pick releases up at their next hourly check.

The aarch64 runner is free for public repositories only.

Mirrored repositories

If the app's GitHub repository is a push mirror of another forge, such as Forgejo, tags created on GitHub are deleted by the mirror's next sync, and GitHub turns their releases back into drafts. The tags have to be created at the source instead, and the mirror carries them to GitHub:

1. In the GitHub workflow, set create-tags: false. A push to main then only runs the checks, and a pushed v* tag is checked against the metainfo, built and released as usual.
2. Create each release's tag at the source. On Forgejo, examples/forgejo-tag.yml does it: copy it to .forgejo/workflows/tag.yml, and when a push to main adds a release to the metainfo, it tags that version on Forgejo. Set its runs-on to a label of one of your Forgejo runners. Without it, tag by hand at the source: git tag v1.2.3 && git push origin v1.2.3.

GitHub never runs workflows from .forgejo/, and Forgejo runs only .forgejo/workflows/ once that folder exists, so neither runs the other's workflows.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. Your app and its releases are not covered by it.