Version Refresh

Refreshes the date portion of a text manifest's version field to today, leaving the rest of the value untouched, and commits+pushes the change if it actually differs. Works with any manifest that declares a field as ## <FieldName>: <value> on its own line - not tied to a field-naming convention.

This never bumps your real version number - only the date portion. It's meant to run automatically - on every push to main (immediate), on a daily schedule (a catch-all in case nothing was pushed that day), and on demand via manual dispatch - so your manifest's declared date always reflects when the addon last actually shipped, without you doing it by hand.

The format template

Y/M/D mark date digits (repeat for width: YY = 2-digit year, YYYY = 4-digit year, MM/DD default to width 2 if repeated twice). V marks version digits - never touched, any width. Any other character is a literal that must match exactly at that position (e.g. the dots in V.V.V). The date run can be a prefix, a suffix, or use a different date order:

Your scheme	format
260913009 (date first, YYMMDD + 3-digit version)	YYMMDDVVV
009260913 (version first)	VVVYYMMDD
09091326 (2-digit version, then MMDDYY)	VVMMDDYY
130926009 (DDMMYY, date first)	DDMMYYVVV
20260913 (full 4-digit year, no version segment)	YYYYMMDD
1.0.0, 10000, or any value with no date at all	NONE
1748895315 (Unix timestamp, e.g. an IntVersion field)	TIMESTAMP

If your value doesn't match the declared format (wrong length, or a literal character doesn't match), the action fails with a clear error naming the mismatch rather than silently doing the wrong thing.

format: NONE means don't refresh anything. If your field has no date portion at all - it's pure semver (1.0.0) or a plain counter (10000) - there is nothing in it for this action to legitimately touch: the whole value IS the version, and this action never modifies a version number, only a date stamp. With NONE, the action reads the field, writes it back completely unchanged, always reports changed: false, and never commits anything. It exists so you can still wire this action into the same workflow shape across every project, even one that doesn't use date-based versioning at all - the step just becomes a permanent no-op for that project instead of you having to leave it out.

format: TIMESTAMP is its own mode, not expressible in the Y/M/D/V template - it replaces the whole field with the current Unix timestamp (seconds since epoch), since a timestamp is one continuously-increasing integer, not separate calendar digit groups.

Usage

Your workflow must check out the repo first, with permissions: contents: write on the job (this action commits and pushes).

name: Version Refresh

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 12 * * *'   # once a day, 12:00 UTC
  workflow_dispatch:
  workflow_call:

jobs:
  refresh-version:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7

      - uses: MPHONlC/version-refresh@Version-0.0.3
        with:
          manifest_file: 'MyAddon.addon'
          field_name: 'AddOnVersion'
          format: 'YYMMDDVVV'
          git_name: 'YourGitName'
          git_email: 'your-email@example.com'

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
manifest_file	Yes	-	Path to your manifest file (.addon, .toc, or any similar text manifest).
field_name	No	AddOnVersion	The field to refresh, matched as ## <field_name>: <value>. WoW's .toc format, for example, uses Version instead.
format	No	YYMMDDVVV	Template describing the field's value shape - see above. NONE for a field with no date component, TIMESTAMP to refresh to the current Unix timestamp instead.
git_name	Yes	-	Git name to attribute the refresh commit to.
git_email	Yes	-	Git email to attribute the refresh commit to.
skip_ci	No	true	Appends [skip ci] to the commit message. Leave true if this runs from a push-triggered workflow, to avoid the commit re-triggering itself in a loop.

Outputs

Output	Description
changed	'true' if the manifest was updated, 'false' if it was already current (or format is NONE).
old_version	The field's value before this run.
new_version	The field's value after this run.

Requirements

• The calling job needs permissions: contents: write, since this action pushes directly.

Important

Without permissions: contents: write on the job, the commit/push step fails - this is the most common setup mistake with this action.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.