Releasing SolveCraft

Releases are deliberate operations that an agent can complete end to end. Development lands on main; pushing the selected commit to release builds all packages and creates a draft GitHub Release. Publishing that verified draft is a separate operation. Pushing to main or pushing a tag does not start the release workflow. There is no automatic commit-message-based version bump and no patch release for every merge.

Nightly prereleases

release.yml also runs at midnight in America/New_York (Eastern time, following daylight saving time). GitHub may start scheduled runs later when its runners are busy. Before building, it compares the exact scheduled main commit with the tag of the most recently published release, including prereleases. If the commits match, all packaging and publication jobs are skipped: no new version, tag, or release is created. Drafts do not count as published releases, so a failed build or publication can be retried the following night.

Changed commits use the existing package build and validation jobs. Only after all jobs succeed, the workflow stages the assets in a draft and publishes a prerelease named v<workspace-version>-nightly.<YYYYMMDD>.<run-number>.<run-attempt> with checksums and generated notes. Any existing workspace prerelease suffix is replaced by the nightly suffix. Dates use Eastern time; package versions are overridden without changing Cargo.toml or Cargo.lock, so the binaries' embedded Cargo version remains the workspace version. Nightlies do not replace the latest stable release or advance the release branch. The normal deliberate release process below continues to create drafts for separate verification and publication.

Nightly publication uses GITHUB_TOKEN, so it does not trigger the downstream Flatpak Pages deployment. The stable Flatpak repository is not automatically updated with nightly builds.

Choose and prepare the version

Fetch origin and its tags. Inspect the previous published release and the changes since it. Choose one version for the complete batch, based on user-visible behavior:
- Patch: compatible fixes, reliability improvements, and packaging corrections.
- Minor: new compatible capabilities. While on 0.x, also use a minor bump for breaking changes and explain the break and any migration in the notes.
- Major: incompatible public behavior or file-format/API changes after 1.0. Moving to 1.0 is an explicit product decision, not something inferred from a commit prefix.
- Use -rc.1, -rc.2, etc. when a release candidate is requested. Documentation-only changes normally wait for the next release. State the reason for the chosen bump in the release notes. Follow any version or release scope specified by the owner.
Update [workspace.package] version in root Cargo.toml. Then run cargo metadata --format-version 1 --no-deps > /dev/null to refresh workspace package versions in Cargo.lock. Inspect the diff and keep unrelated dependency changes out. SolveCraft does not currently implement the siblings' cargo xtask version set command.
Run cargo xtask ci and the packaging checks in .github/workflows/packaging-lint.yml. Commit the version files through the normal review flow and land them on main. Do not use [skip ci]. Record the exact commit SHA to release. If it changes, revalidate it.

Build the draft

Use an authenticated maintainer account or GitHub App with the repository's normal release permissions. Follow branch rules; never force-push or bypass required checks.

git fetch origin --tags
git switch release
git merge --ff-only origin/release
git merge --ff-only origin/main
git push origin release

For the first release, after this workflow has landed on main, create release from the validated origin/main commit (git switch -c release origin/main) and push it. If the branch already exists, use the commands above. Do not create the branch from unrelated work. If a fast-forward fails, inspect and resolve the divergence through the normal review flow.

Find the release.yml Actions run for the recorded SHA and release branch, and monitor that specific run. The workflow builds Linux (both architectures, including Flatpak), macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, and web packages. Once every required job succeeds it creates a draft SolveCraft v<version> with the artifacts, SHA256SUMS.txt, install notes, and generated changes.

A second push with the same untagged version can rebuild and replace that draft's complete asset set. Existing release notes are preserved on rebuild; refresh their changes section if new commits were added. An existing tag or published release is never overwritten. Use a new version after publication. Do not push the version tag yourself: publishing the draft creates it at the draft's target commit.

Verify and publish

When the task authorizes shipping a release, agents should complete these steps without requiring the owner to click through the GitHub UI. A request only to prepare a release or change release infrastructure does not itself request publication of the application.

Confirm that the workflow run succeeded for the intended SHA and that the matching release is still a draft targeting that SHA. Avoid publishing while another release build is active.
Download all assets to a fresh directory. Run sha256sum --check SHA256SUMS.txt and check that every expected platform/architecture is present. Smoke-test the built CLI's --version and an example model on an available platform. Inspect the package-check job output for other platforms; report any platform you could not exercise yourself.
Review the generated notes. Add a concise description of features, fixes, breaking changes, and known limitations. Keep the installation instructions. Packages are currently unsigned; do not claim otherwise. Resolve failed checks or missing artifacts before publication.

Publish the verified draft using gh or the equivalent GitHub release API. For example:

# Substitute the version that was actually built and verified.
gh release edit v0.2.0 --draft=false --latest
# For a release candidate instead:
gh release edit v0.2.0-rc.1 --draft=false --prerelease --latest=false

Confirm that the release is public and its tag resolves to the recorded SHA. Report the release URL, version, checks performed, and any remaining limitations.

Dry runs and retries

gh workflow run release.yml --ref <branch> -f draft=false builds packages and uploads the release-assets Actions artifact without creating or publishing a release. For an explicit retry that creates/updates a draft, use --ref release -f draft=true. Draft creation from another branch is rejected. A rerun must still use an unpublished, untagged version.

Flatpak repository coordination

The Flatpak repository proposed in PR #39 consumes published releases, not these drafts. Keep that deployment separate from building the application. A publication made with an Actions GITHUB_TOKEN does not trigger downstream release: published workflows; in that case explicitly dispatch the Flatpak workflow with the published tag, or use an appropriately authorized maintainer/App token for publication. Do not assume the repository updated: check the deployment run. Coordinate its GitHub Pages output with the existing docs website.

Repository setup

The release branch is advanced only for intentional release batches. Restrict its writers to maintainers/release agents through repository rules if required by the owner's policy. The workflow needs contents: write only in its draft-creation job. It does not push commits, calculate versions, or require a semantic-release bot to bypass main protections.

This workflow replaces the every-push-to-main semantic-release proposal in PR #38; do not merge that automation alongside this release model without redesigning its triggers.

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