Archives¶

The binaries built will be archived together with the README and LICENSE files into a tar.gz file. In the archives section you can customize the archive name, additional files, and format.

Here is a commented archives section with all fields specified:

# .goreleaser.yaml
archives:
  - #
    # ID of this archive.
    #
    # Default: 'default'
    id: my-archive

    # Builds reference which build instances should be archived in this archive.
    builds:
      - default

    # Archive format. Valid options are `tar.gz`, `tgz`, `tar.xz`, `txz`, tar`, `gz`, `zip` and `binary`.
    # If format is `binary`, no archives are created and the binaries are instead
    # uploaded directly.
    #
    # Default: 'tar.gz'
    format: zip

    # This will create an archive without any binaries, only the files are there.
    # The name template must not contain any references to `Os`, `Arch` and etc, since the archive will be meta.
    #
    # Since: v1.9
    # Templates: allowed
    meta: true

    # Archive name.
    #
    # Default:
    # - if format is `binary`:
    #   - `{{ .Binary }}_{{ .Version }}_{{ .Os }}_{{ .Arch }}{{ with .Arm }}v{{ . }}{{ end }}{{ with .Mips }}_{{ . }}{{ end }}{{ if not (eq .Amd64 "v1") }}{{ .Amd64 }}{{ end }}`
    # - if format is anything else:
    #   - `{{ .ProjectName }}_{{ .Version }}_{{ .Os }}_{{ .Arch }}{{ with .Arm }}v{{ . }}{{ end }}{{ with .Mips }}_{{ . }}{{ end }}{{ if not (eq .Amd64 "v1") }}{{ .Amd64 }}{{ end }}`
    # Templates: allowed
    name_template: "{{ .ProjectName }}_{{ .Version }}_{{ .Os }}_{{ .Arch }}"

    # Sets the given file info to all the binaries included from the `builds`.
    #
    # Default: copied from the source binary.
    # Since: v1.14
    builds_info:
      group: root
      owner: root
      mode: 0644
      # format is `time.RFC3339Nano`
      mtime: 2008-01-02T15:04:05Z

    # Set this to true if you want all files in the archive to be in a single directory.
    # If set to true and you extract the archive 'goreleaser_Linux_arm64.tar.gz',
    # you'll get a folder 'goreleaser_Linux_arm64'.
    # If set to false, all files are extracted separately.
    # You can also set it to a custom folder name (templating is supported).
    wrap_in_directory: true

    # If set to true, will strip the parent directories away from binary files.
    #
    # This might be useful if you have your binary be built with a subdir for some reason, but do no want that subdir inside the archive.
    #
    # Since: v1.11
    strip_parent_binary_folder: true

    # This will make the destination paths be relative to the longest common
    # path prefix between all the files matched and the source glob.
    # Enabling this essentially mimic the behavior of nfpm's contents section.
    # It will be the default by June 2023.
    #
    # Since: v1.14
    rlcp: true

    # Can be used to change the archive formats for specific GOOSs.
    # Most common use case is to archive as zip on Windows.
    format_overrides:
      - goos: windows
        format: zip

    # Additional files/globs you want to add to the archive.
    #
    # Default: [ 'LICENSE*', 'README*', 'CHANGELOG', 'license*', 'readme*', 'changelog']
    # Templates: allowed
    files:
      - LICENSE.txt
      - README_{{.Os}}.md
      - CHANGELOG.md
      - docs/*
      - design/*.png
      - templates/**/*
      # a more complete example, check the globbing deep dive below
      - src: "*.md"
        dst: docs

        # Strip parent folders when adding files to the archive.
        strip_parent: true

        # File info.
        # Not all fields are supported by all formats available formats.
        #
        # Default: copied from the source file
        info:
          # Templates: allowed (since v1.14)
          owner: root

          # Templates: allowed (since v1.14)
          group: root

          # Must be in time.RFC3339Nano format.
          #
          # Templates: allowed (since v1.14)
          mtime: "{{ .CommitDate }}"

          # File mode.
          mode: 0644

    # Additional templated files to add to the archive.
    # Those files will have their contents pass through the template engine,
    # and its results will be added to the archive.
    #
    # Since: v1.17 (pro)
    # This feature is only available in GoReleaser Pro.
    # Templates: allowed
    templated_files:
      # a more complete example, check the globbing deep dive below
      - src: "LICENSE.md.tpl"
        dst: LICENSE.md

        # File info.
        # Not all fields are supported by all formats available formats.
        #
        # Default: copied from the source file
        info:
          # Templateable (since v1.14)
          owner: root

          # Templateable (since v1.14)
          group: root

          # Must be in time.RFC3339Nano format.
          # Templateable (since v1.14)
          mtime: "{{ .CommitDate }}"

          # File mode.
          mode: 0644

    # Before and after hooks for each archive.
    # Skipped if archive format is binary.
    # This feature is only available in GoReleaser Pro.
    hooks:
      before:
        - make clean # simple string
        - cmd: go generate ./... # specify cmd
        - cmd: go mod tidy
          output: true # always prints command output
          dir: ./submodule # specify command working directory
        - cmd: touch {{ .Env.FILE_TO_TOUCH }}
          env:
            - "FILE_TO_TOUCH=something-{{ .ProjectName }}" # specify hook level environment variables

      after:
        - make clean
        - cmd: cat *.yaml
          dir: ./submodule
        - cmd: touch {{ .Env.RELEASE_DONE }}
          env:
            - "RELEASE_DONE=something-{{ .ProjectName }}" # specify hook level environment variables

    # Disables the binary count check.
    allow_different_binary_count: true

GoReleaser Pro

Archive hooks is a GoReleaser Pro feature.

Tip

Learn more about the name template engine.

Tip

You can add entire folders, its subfolders and files by using the glob notation, for example: myfolder/**/*.

Warning

The files and wrap_in_directory options are ignored if format is binary.

Warning

The name_template option will not reflect the filenames under the dist folder if format is binary. The template will be applied only where the binaries are uploaded (e.g. GitHub releases).

Deep diving into the globbing options¶

We'll walk through what happens in each case using some examples.

# ...
files:
  # Adds `README.md` at the root of the archive:
  - README.md

  # Adds all `md` files to the root of the archive:
  - "*.md"

  # Adds all `md` files to the root of the archive:
  - src: "*.md"

  # Adds all `md` files in the current folder to a `docs` folder in the archive:
  - src: "*.md"
    dst: docs

  # Recursively adds all `go` files to a `source` folder in the archive.
  # in this case, `cmd/myapp/main.go` will be added as `source/cmd/myapp/main.go`
  - src: "**/*.go"
    dst: source

  # Recursively adds all `go` files to a `source` folder in the archive, stripping their parent folder.
  # In this case, `cmd/myapp/main.go` will be added as `source/main.go`:
  - src: "**/*.go"
    dst: source
    strip_parent: true
# ...

Packaging only the binaries¶

Since GoReleaser will always add the README and LICENSE files to the archive if the file list is empty, you'll need to provide a filled files on the archive section.

A working hack is to use something like this:

# .goreleaser.yaml
archives:
  - files:
      - none*

This would add all files matching the glob none*, provide that you don't have any files matching that glob, only the binary will be added to the archive.

For more information, check #602

A note about Gzip¶

Gzip is a compression-only format, therefore, it couldn't have more than one file inside.

Presumably, you'll want that file to be the binary, so, your archive section will probably look like this:

# .goreleaser.yaml
archives:
  - format: gz
    files:
      - none*

This should create .gz files with the binaries only, which should be extracted with something like gzip -d file.gz.

Warning

You won't be able to package multiple builds in a single archive either. The alternative is to declare multiple archives filtering by build ID.

Disable archiving¶

You can do that by setting format to binary:

# .goreleaser.yaml
archives:
  - format: binary

Make sure to check the rest of the documentation above, as doing this has some implications.

If you have customization that might rely on archives, for instance, brews.install, make sure to fix them too.