chore: add release automation

.github/workflows/release-please.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+name: release-please
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches:
+      - main
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+jobs:
+  release-please:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    outputs:
+      release_created:  ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}
+    steps:
+      - uses: googleapis/release-please-action@v4
+        id: release
+        with:
+          config-file: release-please-config.json
+          manifest-file: .release-please-manifest.json
+
+  npm-publish:
+    needs: release-please
+    if: ${{ needs.release-please.outputs.release_created }}
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
+        with:
+          node-version: lts/*
+          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
+      - run: npm publish --access public
+        env:
+          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

.release-please-manifest.json

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+{
+    ".": "1.1.0"
+}

CREATING_A_RELEASE.md

@@ -5,7 +5,17 @@ want to be able to do releases ask one of the existing collaborators to add
 you. If necessary you can ask the build Working Group who manages the Node.js
 npm user to add you if there are no other active collaborators.
 
-## Prerequisites
+Generally, the release is handled by the
+[release-please](https://github.com/nodejs/node-api-headers/blob/main/.github/workflows/release-please.yml)
+GitHub action. It will bump the version in `package.json` and publish
+node-api-headers to npm.
+
+In cases that the release-please action is not working, please follow the steps
+below to publish node-api-headers manually.
+
+## Publish new release manually
+
+### Prerequisites
 
 Before to start creating a new release check if you have installed the following
 tools:
@@ -15,7 +25,7 @@ tools:
 If not please follow the instruction reported in the tool's documentation to
 install it.
 
-## Publish new release
+### Steps
 
 These are the steps to follow to create a new release:
 

release-please-config.json

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+{
+    "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googleapis/release-please/main/schemas/config.json",
+    "release-type": "node",
+    "pull-request-title-pattern": "chore: release v${version}",
+    "bootstrap-sha": "186e04b5e40e54d7fd1655bc67081cc483f12488",
+    "packages": {
+        ".": {
+            "changelog-path": "CHANGELOG.md"
+        }
+    }
+}