Add semantic-release configuration

[ashleycaselli]

This pull request introduces a complete setup for automated releases and Maven Central publishing for the project. It adds GitHub Actions workflow, semantic-release configuration, and updates the Maven build to support snapshot and release deployments with GPG signing and the new Central publishing plugin. These changes enable continuous integration and delivery, including multi-Java-version testing and automated deployment of artifacts.

CI/CD and Release Automation:

• Added .github/workflows/autorelease.yml to automate testing (on Java 21, 23, 25) and releases on pushes to the release branch, including steps for GPG setup, Node, semantic-release, and merging changes back to master.
• Introduced release.config.js for semantic-release configuration, integrating Maven deployment, GitHub, and Git plugins, and specifying the release branch as the publishing source.
• Added package.json with dev dependencies for semantic-release and Maven semantic-release plugins.

Maven Build and Publishing Configuration:

• Major overhaul of pom.xml:
  • Added distributionManagement for Maven Central Snapshots.
  • Added a release profile for source/javadoc jars and GPG signing.
  • Switched to the new central-publishing-maven-plugin for publishing to Maven Central.
  • Restored and restructured plugins for dependency management, assembly, and jar creation in the main build. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Credential Management:

• Added settings.xml to securely provide credentials for Maven Central and GPG signing, reading secrets from environment variables.

These changes collectively enable robust, automated, and secure publishing of project artifacts to Maven Central, with a modern CI/CD workflow.

[ghost]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.24.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• trustyuri-1.24.0
• GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀