Buildspace

Buildspace is a library of composable GitHub Actions designed to automate releases using AI, simplifying versioning, changelogs, and publishing. It allows teams to focus on code changes while the AI manages semantic versioning and release notes. Build blocks enable customization of workflows, promoting faster shipping with less maintenance and YAML complexity. The tool is open source and aims to enhance CI/CD efficiency for fast-moving teams.

At Photon, we only hire 10x engineers. We delivered a comprehensive SDK in one week and built all the infrastructure to support it in a month - and this kind of work usually takes big companies a year to complete.

This reveals a new era, one driven by AI. Code is being shipped at a faster pace than ever, however CI/CD systems have simply not been keeping up.

every new project needs releases. every release needs versioning, changelogs, and publishing

and every time, you're copying the same YAML, tweaking the same scripts, and worrying about the robustness of your release notes

buildspace is our answer

buildspace is a library of composable GitHub Actions that snap together like LEGO blocks

we call them build blocks

point your repo at a workflow, add a PR label, attach your darkest secrets (publishing keys and tokens, of course), and watch AI determine your semantic version, write your release notes, and publish to npm or crates.io.

AI-Powered Releases

Tools like semantic-release require robust, formatted commit messages. Great in theory, but:

1. Hard to enforce across large teams

2. Slows down fast-moving startups

3. Becomes inconsistent as teams grow

The buildspace way: Just make your code changes. The AI handles the rest - analyzing diffs, determining the semantic version bump (patch/minor/major), and writing clear, meaningful release notes.

Buildspace uses PR labels to control when and what gets released:

• Add release labels to your PR to trigger GitHub releases and package publishing!

This gives you fine-grained control without complex workflow logic. Merge when ready, label when shipping.

Rust Release

name: Release

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  release:
    uses: photon-hq/buildspace/.github/workflows/rust-service-release.yaml@main
    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: read
  with:
    service-name: my-service
    binary-name: my-binary
      # Order matters: dependencies first
      crates: '["crates/shared", "crates/client"]

Build Blocks: Compose Your Pipeline

You may ask, what if we don't want to do the full functionality of release workflows?

Well, no need to fear, build blocks are here!

Build blocks are modular components you can piece together to create custom pipelines for:

• determine-publish-version: AI-powered semantic versioning

• generate-release-info: Release notes from code diffs

• sync-crates-version: Rust workspace version synchronization

• publish-crates / publish-npm: One-command publishing

• check-pr-label: Conditional workflow triggers

Mix and match. Build what you need.

Less YAML. Less maintenance. More shipping.

Buildspace is built for teams that move fast, where commit message discipline takes a back seat to delivery, where releases should be automated, and where the CI/CD pipeline should just work.

Leverage ai that can read code diffs to generated release notes -- let's allow ai to do the tedious work at a better quality humans could ever keep up with, and focus on the code.

Just Ship.

Buildspace is open source and built by Photon. Check out the repo to get started.