Hi @blackears 👋

The principle is a single source of truth (as the earlier reply said), but let me make it concrete for your exact setup — version in GitHub Actions workflows + two .cfg files + script files.

1. For GitHub Actions — don't store the version in the workflow at all. Trigger releases from a git tag and read the version from the tag, so the workflow never needs editing per release:

on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Read version from tag
        run: echo "VERSION=${GITHUB_REF_NAME#v}" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"

Then reference ${{ env.VERSION }} (or ${{ github.ref_name }}) anywhere a step needs the number. Tag v1.2.3 → version 1.2.3.

2. For the .cfg and script files, keep one canonical VERSION file and rewrite the rest with a small script. Example VERSION:

1.2.3

scripts/sync_version.sh (run as part of tagging):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
VER="$(cat VERSION)"

# update the .cfg files (adjust the pattern to your real format)
sed -i -E "s/^(version\s*=\s*).*/\1${VER}/" path/to/one.cfg
sed -i -E "s/^(version\s*=\s*).*/\1${VER}/" path/to/two.cfg
# any other file carrying the version
sed -i -E "s/@@VERSION@@/${VER}/g" scripts/any_script.py

git add -A
git commit -m "chore: bump to ${VER}" || true
git tag "v${VER}"

3. Release with one command so a file can't be overlooked:

# edit VERSION, then:
./scripts/sync_version.sh && git push origin "v$(cat VERSION)"

4. Add a CI guard that fails if any file still holds a stale version — this is what actually prevents forgetting:

- name: Check versions are in sync
  run: |
    VER="${GITHUB_REF_NAME#v}"
    grep -q "version = ${VER}" path/to/one.cfg
    grep -q "version = ${VER}" path/to/two.cfg

If you also want to automate which version comes next, setuptools-scm (Python) or release-it/commitizen can derive it from tags — but the
source-of-truth + sync-script + CI-guard pattern above is the core and works regardless of the tool.

Happy to tailor the sed patterns if you share the exact format of your two .cfg files 👍