How to release chrome extension from GitHub repository

I have the code for my chrome extension on GitHub, which I want to publish on Chrome Store. Doing it manually once is fine, but I want to make an automated flow, where as soon as any commit comes to a release branch, chrome extension on the chrome store is also updated. Is there any documentation by any developer or Google which explains how to setup this for my chrome extension?

Answer

I suggest using GitHub Actions to automate publishing. High-level steps are:

1. Building and packing your extension into zip file.
2. Obtaining (action) an access token for Google API (. using clientId, clientSecret, refreshToken (how get them? Docs, Article).
3. Upload zip as a new version to Web Store using API (action)
4. Once the uploaded version was reviewed, publish it (action).

However, there are some pitfalls in this process, such as undocumented responses from Google API, the need for repeating the uploading if it happened shortly after the previous one, refresh token expiration. If you want to build a convenient and robust workflow based on GitHub Actions to handle all these cases I can recommend reading this series of articles.