GoReleaser "failed to fetch tags" (shallow clone) in CI

By Daniel Zoghalchali·Latchkey

GoReleaser reads tags from the local clone to pick the current and previous version for the changelog. A shallow CI checkout omits tags, so GoReleaser either fails or uses a stale version.

What this error means

GoReleaser warns "couldn't find any tags before ..." or produces a wrong version and an empty changelog because tags were not fetched into the shallow clone.

  • couldn't find any tags before "v1.4.0"
⨯ release failed after 1s
  error=failed to fetch tags: fatal: No names found, cannot describe anything.

Common causes

Shallow checkout without tags

The default fetch-depth: 1 clones only the tip commit and no tag objects, so GoReleaser cannot describe the version.

Tags exist on the remote but were not fetched

Even a deeper fetch may skip tags unless fetch-tags or fetch-depth: 0 is set.

How to fix it

Do a full fetch with tags

Set fetch-depth: 0 so actions/checkout brings the entire history and all tags GoReleaser needs.

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

Fetch tags explicitly if you keep a shallow clone

When a full clone is too expensive, unshallow and fetch tags before running GoReleaser.

git fetch --prune --unshallow --tags
goreleaser release --clean

How to prevent it

• Standardize on fetch-depth: 0 for every release workflow.
• Verify the changelog is populated as a sign tags were fetched.
• Avoid shallow clones in jobs that call git describe semantics.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• Go documentation
• GitHub Actions documentation