Releasing with Gitlab CI_JOB_TOKEN

[Z01d-b3rg]

I'm trying to release on Gitlab using only the CI_JOB_TOKEN. Since the token does not have the permission to push to the repository, I disabled the git.push option. I do not want to create a commit, only a new tag.

A new tag can be created using the releases API, but the release-it request doesn't set the ref field, which is required when creating a release for a non-existing tag_name. The error message is:

HTTPError: Response code 422 (Unprocessable Entity)

Is there any configuration option/ hook I am missing to set this? I could fall back to using a project/ group access token but would prefer not to.

Config:

 gitlab: {
    skipChecks: true,
    tokenHeader: 'JOB-TOKEN',
    release: true,
    releaseName: 'Release ${version}',
    releaseNotes: null,
    milestones: [],
    tokenRef: 'CI_JOB_TOKEN',
    certificateAuthorityFile: null,
    assets: null,
    origin: null
  },
  git: {
    push: false,
    requireCleanWorkingDir: false,
    commit: false,
    changelog: 'git log --pretty=format:"* %s (%h)" ${from}...${to}',
    requireBranch: false,
    requireUpstream: true,
    requireCommits: false,
    requireCommitsFail: true,
    commitsPath: '',
    addUntrackedFiles: false,
    commitMessage: 'Release ${version}',
    commitArgs: [],
    tag: true,
    tagExclude: null,
    tagName: null,
    tagMatch: null,
    getLatestTagFromAllRefs: false,
    tagAnnotation: 'Release ${version}',
    tagArgs: [],
    pushArgs: [ '--follow-tags' ],
    pushRepo: ''
  },
  [...]

Output:

[...]
RELEASE-IT:GITLAB 75: {
  url: 'https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/$id/releases',
  json: {
    name: 'Release 2023.10.20',
    tag_name: '2023.10.20.0',
    description: '# [](https://gitlab.com/$project_path/compare/2023.10.18.0...null) (2023-10-20)\n' +
      '\n' +
      '\n' +
      '### Features\n' 
  }
}
RELEASE-IT:GITLAB 75: HTTPError: Response code 422 (Unprocessable Entity)
[...]

[webpro]

I don't have much experience with GitLab, but I guess the tag must be present in order to create a tag on the remote. Which needs to be pushed first? This is how it works with GitHub: a tag must exist on the remote to create a release.

[Z01d-b3rg]

The tag can be created alongside the release if a ref is passed along. It doesn't have to exist beforehand.

From the documentation:

If a tag specified in tag_name doesn’t exist, the release is created from ref and tagged with tag_name. It can be a commit SHA, another tag name, or a branch name.