Include built Quarto site in releases for Zenodo archiving

[maehr]

Feature request: Attach compressed Quarto build to manually created releases for Zenodo archiving

Currently, the GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/quarto‑publish.yml) builds and optimizes the Quarto site in the _site directory, uploading it as an artifact for dead-link checking and Pages deployment. However, the built site is not included in the release archive, so Zenodo only receives the project source code when archiving a release.

Rationale

• Zenodo uses release assets: Zenodo archives all assets attached to a GitHub Release, but by default, only the code tarball/zip are included. The built site must be attached manually.
• Manual release creation: Releases are created manually in this project, so automation should only add assets to an already-published release – not trigger or create a release automatically.
• No committing build artefacts: Committing built files (e.g., docs/ or _site/) to the repository is discouraged, as this clutters history and increases repo size unnecessarily.

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Proposed Solution

• Compress the Quarto site
  • After building and optimizing the site in _site, compress it into a single archive (e.g., tar -czf site.tar.gz -C _site . or use zip).
• Upload to the manual release
  • Add a workflow triggered by release: published.
  • Use the official gh CLI (gh release upload ...) to upload site.tar.gz to the just-published release. This is preferable to deprecated actions/upload-release-asset and avoids auto-creating releases.

Example (to adapt for your workflow):

on:
  release:
    types: [published]

jobs:
  attach-site:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check out repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      # Build and optimize site as in 'build-optimize'
      ...
      - name: Compress built site
        run: tar -czf site.tar.gz -C _site .
      - name: Upload site to release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          gh release upload ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }} site.tar.gz --clobber

Benefits:

• Ensures the Quarto site (as deployed) is archived with the release and DOI.
• Keeps repo history clean (no committed build artefacts).
• Aligns with manual release workflow.

---

Conclusion:

• It is necessary and efficient to compress (zip/tar) the built Quarto site before attaching it as a release asset, since GitHub releases only accept files. This approach supports manual release creation, clean history, and ensures that Zenodo archives the published documentation.

Type of change

Enhancement