🚀 [Feature]: Version output always emitted regardless of publish decision

[Marius Storhaug (MariusStorhaug)]

The action now always emits a valid Version and FullVersion output, even when no release will be created. Non-publishable builds receive a development prerelease version so downstream jobs always have a version to stamp into the artifact.

New: Development prerelease version for non-publishable builds

When ShouldPublish is false, the action now emits a development prerelease version (e.g. 1.2.4-mybranch001) instead of empty strings. The CreateRelease output remains false — downstream jobs continue to use this flag to gate publishing.

When ShouldPublish is true, behavior is unchanged.

Technical Details

• Moved version resolution (GitHub releases + PSGallery query) outside the ShouldPublish conditional so it always executes.
• When ShouldPublish is false, the existing Get-NextModuleVersion is called with a forced patch bump and the branch-based prerelease tag (reusing existing IncrementalPrerelease / DatePrereleaseFormat logic).
• Made Write-ActionOutput's NewVersion parameter mandatory (always receives a value now).
• Added Pester tests covering all non-publish scenarios and existing bump behavior.
• Implementation plan progress: Core changes and Tests tasks in Resolve-PSModuleVersion: Always emit a version regardless of publish decision Process-PSModule#348 completed; Validation task remains.

Related issues

• Fixes Resolve-PSModuleVersion: Always emit a version regardless of publish decision Process-PSModule#348

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Updates the Resolve-PSModuleVersion GitHub Action so it always resolves and emits Version / FullVersion outputs on successful runs, including when no release will be published (non-publish runs now produce a dev prerelease version).

Changes:

• Always resolves latest published version (GitHub releases + PSGallery) and always computes NewVersion, regardless of ShouldPublish.
• Adjusts release-decision/versioning logic to produce a patch-bumped prerelease (with incremental counter) for non-publish runs, and makes Write-ActionOutput -NewVersion mandatory.
• Replaces bespoke workflow-based action tests with Pester tests + data-driven test cases.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tests/README.md	Removes placeholder test README.
tests/Helpers.Tests.ps1	Adds Pester tests for release decision + version computation behavior.
tests/Helpers.Tests.Data.psd1	Adds data sets driving the new Pester tests.
scripts/main.ps1	Moves version resolution outside ShouldPublish and always computes/emits a version.
scripts/Helpers.psm1	Updates decision/version logic and output emission to ensure outputs are always populated.
action.yml	Exposes GH_TOKEN to the action step so gh commands work reliably.
.github/workflows/Action-Test.yml	Simplifies CI to run Pester tests via PSModule/Invoke-Pester.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

scripts/Helpers.psm1:583

• Get-NextPrereleaseNumber can throw terminating errors (e.g., PSGallery connectivity issues). Since this branch now executes for all non-publishable builds (-not $Decision.ShouldPublish), a transient PSGallery failure would fail otherwise non-publishing PR builds. Consider wrapping the call in try/catch here (with a safe fallback like '001' or GH-only calculation) so version stamping remains reliable.

            if ($Configuration.IncrementalPrerelease -or -not $Decision.ShouldPublish) {
                $baseVersionString = "$($newVersion.Major).$($newVersion.Minor).$($newVersion.Patch)"
                $params = @{
                    ModuleName     = $ModuleName
                    BaseVersion    = $baseVersionString