Release

Release skill — genlayer-cli

This repo follows a branch-per-major release model. There is no auto-bump on push. A release happens when a human (or you on their behalf) runs scripts/release.sh on the target stable branch.

When to use this skill

User asks anything like:

• "release v0.39.2"
• "ship a patch"
• "tag the latest fix as a release"

If they ask "publish to npm directly" — refuse and point at this flow. The repo doesn't have an unprotected npm push path; the tag is the only release entry point.

What this repo's release model expects

• Branches are named after the major they ship: v0.39 (current stable). When v0.40 opens (a major bump in semver-zero terms), the previous v0.39 stays read-only for back-ports.
• Tags live within those branches: v0.39.2, v0.39.3, ...
• Semver-zero rule: this package is on 0.x, so the MINOR component is the breaking-change boundary. 0.39 → 0.40 IS a major bump. scripts/release.sh refuses both minor and major keywords without --allow-major.
• A major (= minor on 0.x) bump means cutting a new branch (v0.40) — not tagging on the current one.
• CHANGELOG.md is updated in the release commit (release-it via @release-it/conventional-changelog).
• publish.yml fires on the tag push and does the npm publish + GitHub Release.

Steps

1. Confirm intent with the user.

   • Which version? If unspecified, ask whether it's patch or explicit.
   • If they say "minor" or "major" on 0.x, surface that this means cutting a new branch — confirm.

2. Switch to the target branch + sync.

   git checkout v0.39
   git pull --ff-only origin v0.39
   

3. Verify the head is shippable.

   • Latest CI green:

     gh run list --branch v0.39 --commit "$(git rev-parse HEAD)" --limit 1
     

   • Inspect commits since the previous tag:

     git log "$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD" --oneline
     

4. Run the release script.

   scripts/release.sh <X.Y.Z>     # or patch
   

   Bumps package.json, prepends CHANGELOG.md, commits, tags vX.Y.Z, pushes branch + tag. Does NOT publish to npm — CI handles that.

5. Watch the publish workflow.

   gh run watch
   

   If publish.yml fails (typical: tag/package.json mismatch, NPM_TOKEN, provenance), report verbatim and stop.

6. Confirm on npm.

   npm view genlayer dist-tags
   

   (Yes — the npm package name is genlayer, not @genlayer/cli.)

Things to refuse

• Minor or major bump on 0.x without --allow-major. Those are major bumps in semver-zero and belong on a new branch.
• Releasing from main — main is retired.
• Pushing to the dead staging branch — the beta-channel flow was retired with the auto-bump. If you need a pre-release, tag v0.39.2-beta.0 directly via the script with explicit version.
• Hand-editing package.json to bump the version — the script keeps everything in lockstep.
• Publishing a tag where publish.yml failed — fix the underlying issue, delete the bad tag, re-cut via the script.

Roll-back

1. Don't unpublish from npm unless someone with elevated permissions has assessed the impact.
2. Deprecate the bad version:

   npm deprecate "genlayer@<X.Y.Z>" "broken release; install <X.Y.Z+1> or later"
   

3. Ship a follow-up patch via the same flow.

Why no auto-bump?

The previous flow auto-bumped on every push to main (and staging for betas). Trade-off:

• Lost: instant publish on merge.
• Gained: a human checkpoint between "code lands" and "users get it"; no accidental major bumps from BREAKING CHANGE footers in PR bodies.

Source: genlayerlabs/genlayer-cli — distributed by TomeVault.