Release Cut

Cut a pi-agent-dashboard Release

Canonical reference: docs/release-process.md. This skill automates steps 1–5 of that doc. Production tags (vX.Y.Z) publish the GitHub Release automatically — electron-updater's default GitHub provider only resolves published, non-draft releases, so a draft would silently block auto-update. Pre-release tags (vX.Y.Z-rc.N) stay drafts so a maintainer can eyeball artifacts before flipping to published. See change: fix-electron-auto-update-pipeline.

Pre-flight (MUST pass before touching anything)

Run these in order. If any fails, stop and report — do not continue.

1. Clean working tree

   git status --porcelain
   

   Must be empty. If not, ask the user to commit or stash.

2. On the release branch

   git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD
   

   Must be develop (this repo has no main). If elsewhere, ask user to confirm before continuing.

3. Up to date with origin

   git fetch origin && git status -sb
   

   Branch must NOT be "behind". If behind, ask user to pull first.

4. Tests pass

   pnpm test
   

5. Build succeeds

   pnpm run build
   

6. Dependency-shape gate (introduced by enable-standalone-npm-install to prevent regressions of v0.5.3 publish-time bugs)

   node scripts/verify-release-deps.mjs
   

   Asserts critical runtime deps (jiti, pinned node-pty, etc.) are still declared in the publishable workspace package.json files. Failure means the next published tarball would be broken — STOP and fix the workspace before cutting.

   Known false-positive (substring gate). verify-release-deps.mjs checks the declared range with a naive String.includes(minVersion) — NOT semver math. So a legitimate pi bump ABOVE the floor (e.g. floor 0.74.0, pin ^0.80.10) fails the gate because "^0.80.10" does not contain the substring "0.74.0". When this fires and the pin is genuinely newer than the rule's minVersion, the FIX is to bump that rule's minVersion (+ its evidence note in the RULES array, and the scripts/AGENTS.md row) to the new floor — do NOT downgrade the pin. This recurs on every pi version bump. See change: fix-release-lockfile-drift (gate lives in scripts/verify-release-deps.mjs).

7. Dispatch ci-smoke.yml against develop (recommended; catches installer regressions BEFORE the tag exists)

   The release pipeline (publish.yml) gates publish on a release-gate that runs the full 7-leg standalone-install-smoke matrix. If that gate fails on workflow_dispatch, tag-and-push is skipped — clean abort, no commit, no tag. But on a git push --tags cut, the tag already exists when the gate fires; failure leaves a dangling tag requiring release-revoke.

   Operators SHOULD run the smoke matrix first against develop:

   gh workflow run ci-smoke.yml --ref develop
   gh run watch  # or open the Actions UI
   

   All 7 legs must be green before cutting. If any leg fails, fix the regression on develop first — do NOT cut a tag that you know will fail the gate. Skip this step only when the change since the last release is provably installer-irrelevant (no lockfile, bundle-server, native dep, or preload-fastify touch). See change: gate-publish-on-smoke-and-tests.

If any pre-flight step fails, stop and surface the exact error to the user.

Step 1 — Read current state

git describe --tags --abbrev=0        # last tag, e.g. v0.2.9
node -p "require('./package.json').version"   # current pkg version

Confirm they match (e.g. tag v0.2.9 ↔ pkg 0.2.9). If they diverge, surface the mismatch and ask the user how to proceed.

Step 2 — Curate ## [Unreleased]

1. List commits since last tag:

   git log <last-tag>..HEAD --oneline
   

2. Read CHANGELOG.md and extract the current ## [Unreleased] section.
3. Cross-check: every feat: / fix: commit should have a corresponding user-visible bullet under Added / Changed / Fixed.
4. If gaps exist, use AskUserQuestion to list missing items and confirm whether the user wants to add them now. If yes, draft bullets in end-user language (not commit-subject shorthand) and insert them.
5. Never invent behaviour — only summarise what the commits actually did.

Far-behind escape hatch (long release cycle). If [Unreleased] was not maintained per-change and the tag→HEAD span is huge (v0.6.0 was a 2-month, 906-commit release with only 24 of ~234 feat/fix changes documented), do NOT re-audit hundreds of commits by hand and do NOT dump raw commit subjects. Generate the deduped input set — git log <last-tag>..HEAD --oneline filtered to feat|fix|perf, minus the change-tags already in [Unreleased] — then delegate grouped drafting to a subagent (keeps quality high + your context focused). Merge the returned bullets under the existing headings programmatically (existing bullets first, new appended), scoped to the [Unreleased] section only, and cap the long tail with one rolled-up "Additional fixes" line. This is the exact path that worked for v0.6.0.

Step 3 — Decide next version (SemVer)

Propose per this decision tree, then use AskUserQuestion to confirm:

Current version X.Y.Z → propose X.(Y+1).0 for minor, etc. Do NOT auto-select — always ask the user to confirm the target version (offer the proposal as default).

Step 4 — Promote ## [Unreleased] → versioned section

In CHANGELOG.md:

1. Rename ## [Unreleased] to ## [<version>] - <YYYY-MM-DD> (use today's date from date +%Y-%m-%d, no leading v).

2. Insert a fresh empty ## [Unreleased] section above it:

   ## [Unreleased]
   
   ### Added
   
   ### Changed
   
   ### Fixed
   
   ## [<version>] - <YYYY-MM-DD>
   ...existing bullets...
   

Verify afterwards with:

grep -n "^## " CHANGELOG.md | head

Step 5 — Bump all workspace versions + sync inter-package dep specifiers

npm version <version> --workspaces --include-workspace-root --no-git-tag-version
node scripts/sync-versions.js
pnpm install --lockfile-only

The first command bumps the version field on the root + every workspace (npm version only edits package.json — no lockfile, no install — so it stays npm even under the pnpm migration). The second rewrites every inter-package dependencies specifier (e.g. "@blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-shared": "^<old>") to the new version. The third regenerates pnpm-lock.yaml so its recorded cross-ref specifiers match the bumped versions — without it, strict prerelease semver causes consumer installs to fall back to stale registry tarballs. The CI tag-and-push job runs the same three commands; doing it locally keeps the commit honest. See changes: fix-release-lockfile-drift, adopt-pnpm-for-dev-ci.

Why the second step? The npm CLI does not implement the workspace: protocol (it's a pnpm/yarn feature). We use plain semver ranges and synchronise them at bump time so the published tarballs have consistent metadata. CI's publish.yml runs sync-versions.js defensively too, but running it locally keeps the commit honest.

Skew guard for distill-session-knowledge → session-distiller. The thin skill package @blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-distill-session-knowledge deps on the engine @blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-session-distiller. Both are non-private, so npm publish -ws publishes them in the SAME run (engine first — -ws walks in topological/dependency order) and sync-versions.js pins the dep specifier to the just-cut version. Never publish one without the other; that is what prevents cross-package skew.

Verify with:

git diff --stat package.json packages/*/package.json pnpm-lock.yaml

Should show version bumps in package.json and every packages/*/package.json plus synchronised @blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-* dependency specifiers, plus a regenerated pnpm-lock.yaml. No other files.

Step 6 — Commit

git add CHANGELOG.md package.json pnpm-lock.yaml packages/*/package.json
git commit -m "chore(release): v<version>"

Use AskUserQuestion (confirm) before committing — show the user the exact message + file list.

Step 7 — Tag and push

git tag v<version>
git push origin develop
git push origin v<version>

Use AskUserQuestion (confirm) before pushing. Surface this warning: pushing the tag triggers the Release workflow immediately. Reverting requires git push --delete origin v<version> + re-tag.

Step 8 — Post-push instructions (print to user)

Give the user this summary:

✅ Tag v<version> pushed.

Next steps (human):
1. Watch CI:  https://github.com/BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/actions
   The Release workflow will:
     • publish every non-private workspace (~32 @blackbelt-technology/*
       packages via `npm publish -ws --include-workspace-root`) to npm
     • build Electron installers (macOS DMG × 2 — Apple Silicon +
       Intel, Linux DEB+AppImage, Windows NSIS+ZIP+portable per arch)
     • create a GitHub Release with artifacts + latest*.yml metadata.
       PRODUCTION tags (vX.Y.Z) publish immediately; PRE-RELEASE tags
       (vX.Y.Z-rc.N) land as a draft.
2. Open the release:
   https://github.com/BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard/releases
3. Verify the body (auto-extracted from CHANGELOG.md [<version>] section)
   and all 7 platform artifacts are attached:
     • PI-Dashboard-<ver>-arm64.dmg  (Apple Silicon)
     • PI-Dashboard-<ver>-x64.dmg    (Intel)
     • pi-dashboard_<ver>_amd64.deb         (Linux x64)
     • pi-dashboard_<ver>_arm64.deb         (Linux arm64)
     • PI-Dashboard-<ver>.AppImage          (Linux x64)
     • PI-Dashboard-<ver> Setup.exe + .zip + portable.exe (Windows x64)
     • .zip + portable.exe (Windows arm64)
4. PRODUCTION tag: the release is already published — nothing to click;
   `release: published` fires automatically and redeploys GitHub Pages.
   PRE-RELEASE tag: review the draft, then click "Publish release".

If something is wrong, see `.pi/skills/release-revoke/SKILL.md`.

Step 9 — Drive the post-tag Release pipeline (the tag push is the START, not the end)

Pushing the tag begins a gated pipeline in publish.yml that fails in ways you cannot see until release time. Both v0.6.0 and v0.6.1 needed MANY tag moves before a Release was published. Stay on it until github-release is green.

Pipeline shape (each is a gate; a failure before github-release means NO GitHub Release exists yet):

release-gate ( ci-checks + 7-leg smoke ) → publish (npm, OIDC) → electron (6-leg matrix) → github-release

Latent-bug warning: the FIRST release where publish finally goes green exposes CI bugs that never ran before (v0.6.1's electron job had been silently skipped every prior cut because publish had never succeeded). Expect the electron/publish legs to surface never-before-exercised failures.

Recovery loop (the normal rhythm)

Fix on develop → force-move the tag to the fix commit → re-run. npm publish is idempotent (skips already-published packages), so a partial publish + tag move is safe. This is the expected loop until a GitHub Release is published — see the reconciled guardrail below.

git commit ... && git push origin develop
git tag -f v<version> && git push -f origin v<version>   # re-triggers a clean single-pass run

Do NOT use gh run rerun --failed for gate failures

GitHub does not re-dispatch skipped downstream reusable-workflow jobs (electron, github-release) on a --failed rerun — even after publish turns green. You get npm published but no installers / no Release, repeatedly. A fresh (or force-moved) tag push runs the pipeline top-to-bottom in one pass. rerun is fine ONLY for an isolated flaky leg whose downstream hasn't been reached yet (e.g. a single red smoke leg).

Failure triage

Guardrails

• Never skip pre-flight. A failing test or dirty tree means the release is not ready.
• If a gate-fix commit lands AFTER chore(release), tag HEAD, not the release commit. When the pre-tag smoke matrix (step 7) surfaces a latent develop bug, you fix it in a follow-up commit on top of chore(release). The Release workflow re-runs the release-gate against the TAGGED tree, so the tag MUST include that fix — tag current HEAD. The version files (0.6.0) live in the ancestor chore(release) commit, so the tagged tree still carries the right version. Tagging the release commit instead would re-run the gate WITHOUT the fix and fail the publish (dangling tag).
• Production tags publish automatically (electron-updater needs a published release). Only pre-release tags (-rc.N, -beta.N) stay drafts for manual review — never hand-edit a production release to draft.
• Force-moving the tag is the STANDARD post-tag recovery — UNTIL a GitHub Release is published. Before github-release completes, no Release exists and npm publish is idempotent, so fixing a publish/electron-phase bug on develop and git push -f origin v<version> to the fix commit is the expected loop (Step 9), not a violation. Once a GitHub Release IS published, STOP force-moving — surface the conflict and hand off to release-revoke.
• After tagging, always verify the tag SHA. The dashboard git-polls and concurrent pi sessions can hold .git/index.lock; a blocked commit can silently drop your fix and leave the tag on a sibling session's commit. Confirm: git rev-parse v<version> == the intended fix commit, and git log -1 --oneline v<version> shows YOUR change — before watching the run.
• One version at a time. If the user asks to release two versions in a row, run this skill twice.
• Respect the checkpoint in docs/release-process.md — human clicks Publish, not the skill.