feat: Track Pending Releases

[cweinberger]

Summary

Adds automatic tracking of commits pending production deployment via a persistent GitHub issue with color-coded status indicators. Provides an at-a-glance view of what changes are ready to deploy.

Why? Relevant for repositories where we do manual production releases.

Example Tracker: https://github.com/monta-app/service-vehicle/issues/299
Example Usage: https://github.com/monta-app/service-vehicle/blob/main/.github/workflows/track-pending-release.yml

What It Does

Creates and maintains a single GitHub issue that automatically updates to show:

• Current deployment status (🟢/🟡/🔴 emoji in title)
• List of commits on main that haven't been deployed to production yet
• Links to commits, diffs, and deployment workflow
• Direct instructions to trigger production deployment via GitHub Actions UI

Status Indicators

The issue title updates automatically based on pending commits:

• 🟢 Green (0 commits) - Production is up-to-date with main
• 🟡 Yellow (1 commit) - One commit pending deployment
• 🔴 Red (>1 commits) - Multiple commits pending deployment

This provides instant visibility in the issue list - you can see deployment status at a glance.

Example Issue States

When Up-to-Date (🟢)

Title: 🟢 Production Release Tracker

## 🟢 Recently Released

Status: ✅ Up-to-date - Production is in sync with main

Latest Production Deploy:
- Tag: 2026-01-16-12-30
- Commit: abc123de

All changes on main have been deployed to production.

When Commits Are Pending (🔴)

Title: 🔴 Production Release Tracker

## 🔴 Pending Release Changelog

Status: ⚠️ 3 commits pending deployment

Latest Production Deploy:
- Tag: 2026-01-16-12-30
- Commit: abc123de

Current Main Branch:
- Commit: def456gh

### 📝 Commits Pending Deployment

- [def456g] feat: add new feature by @developer1
- [789abcd] fix: resolve bug by @developer2
- [e1f2g3h] chore: update deps by @developer3

---

To deploy these changes to production:

1. Go to Actions > Deploy Production
2. Click "Run workflow"
3. Select branch: main
4. Click "Run workflow"

[View full diff]

How It Works

1. Tracks Deployment State: Compares latest production release tag with main branch HEAD
2. Updates Automatically: Runs on every push to main and after production deployments
3. Persistent Issue: Creates/updates a single issue (no spam from closing/reopening)
4. Dynamic Title: Issue title changes to show status emoji for quick scanning

Triggers

The workflow runs on:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main       # Tracks new commits
    tags:
      - '*'        # Manual tag pushes
  workflow_dispatch: # Manual trigger
  workflow_run:
    workflows: ["Deploy Production"]
    types:
      - completed  # After automated deployments

Note: The workflow_run trigger is required because enable-release-tag creates tags using GITHUB_TOKEN, which doesn't trigger other workflows (GitHub Actions limitation). This ensures the issue updates immediately after production deployments.

Benefits

1. At-a-glance visibility: Issue title shows deployment status in your issue list
2. No "what are we releasing?" questions: Team can see exactly what's pending
3. Easy deployment: Direct link to trigger workflow dispatch
4. No notification spam: Issue stays open, updates in-place
5. Full traceability: Links to commits, authors, and full diff
6. Team coordination: Pin the issue for easy team access

Technical Details

• Label: Creates and uses pending-release label (🟠 orange)
• Comparison Method: Uses GitHub API compare endpoint
• Tag Source: Reads from latest git tag (requires enable-release-tag: true)
• Permissions: Uses GITHUB_TOKEN (automatically provided)
• Reopening: Automatically reopens issue if it was previously closed

Integration

Works seamlessly with existing deployment workflows:

• enable-release-tag: true - Creates tags this workflow tracks
• enable-changelog: true - Generates release notes after deploy
• Tag-based production deployments

Setup

After merging, the workflow will:

1. Run automatically on the next push to main
2. Create a pending-release label (if doesn't exist)
3. Create the tracking issue
4. Update on every push to main and production deployment

Recommended: Pin the issue to your repository for easy team access.

Testing

1. Merge this PR
2. Check Issues tab for new pending-release labeled issue
3. Make a commit to main and verify issue updates
4. Deploy to production and verify issue updates to 🟢 status

[MithrandirDK]

I like this