prepare-release

name	prepare-release
description	Prepare the next release of the application (tag, docs, release notes), then publish the pre-release and request a staging roll-up
disable-model-invocation	true

Prepare Release

Prerequisites: GitHub CLI

This workflow uses gh to fetch releases, compare branches, and draft release notes via the GitHub API. Follow the check-github-cli skill first (ensure gh auth status succeeds; if not, guide the user to install/configure gh and do not proceed). The account needs read access to the repo and, if you publish or draft releases, appropriate write access.

Overview

Prepare the next release of the application.

Steps

1. Get the next release tag name

• Fetch the latest release from GitHub: gh release list --limit 1 (or gh release view for the latest). Retrieve its tag name (e.g. v1.2.3).
• If the user did not specify which version bump to use: Compute the next minor version per semantic versioning (e.g. v1.2.3 → v1.3.0).
• If the user specified major or patch: Compute the next major (e.g. v2.0.0) or patch (e.g. v1.2.4) version accordingly.
• Use this tag (e.g. v1.3.0) as the release tag for all following steps.

2. Update ./docs/ENVS.md and ./docs/DEPRECATED_ENVS.md

• In both files, replace every placeholder that contains the text "upcoming" with the next release tag followed by a "+". Examples:
  • "upcoming" → "v1.3.0+"
  • "<upcoming>" → "v1.3.0+"
• You can use search-and-replace in the editor or a script (e.g. sed -i '' 's/upcoming/v1.3.0+/g' ./docs/ENVS.md and similarly for DEPRECATED_ENVS.md; adjust for <upcoming> if present). Ensure all such placeholders are updated.

3. Create release notes

Perform the following sub-steps in order.

• Reference files: Use ./RELEASE_NOTES.md as the template and, for format inspiration, this example release.

• Get release notes draft: Use the GitHub API to generate draft release notes with main as the target (e.g. gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/releases/generate-notes -f tag_name=<next-tag> -f target_commitish=main -f previous_tag_name=<latest-release-tag>). Parse the response to get the list of pull request numbers and new contributors. Keep this list; every PR in it must appear in the final notes.

• Fetch and store PR data (labels and descriptions): Before editing the release notes file, fetch labels and body for all PRs from the draft once and save them to a temporary file so later steps do not hit the GitHub API repeatedly. Use the script that rate-limits requests (authenticated API limit is 5000 requests/hour; the script adds a delay between calls).

  • From the repository root, run: node .agents/skills/prepare-release/fetch-release-prs.js <pr-number-1> <pr-number-2> ... --out release-prs-data.json with every PR number from the release notes draft. Example: node .agents/skills/prepare-release/fetch-release-prs.js 2725 2726 2727 --out release-prs-data.json.
  • The script writes JSON to release-prs-data.json in the repository root (format: { "prs": [ { "number", "title", "author", "url", "labels", "body" }, ... ] }). Use this file as the single source of truth for labels and descriptions in the next two steps; do not call the GitHub API again when mapping sections or writing the ENV section.

• Copy and fill the notes file: Copy ./RELEASE_NOTES.md to a new file ./RELEASE_NOTES_<release-tag>.md (e.g. RELEASE_NOTES_v1.3.0.md).

• Map PRs to sections: For each section in the new file except "Changes in ENV variables", add the relevant pull requests. Use only the data in release-prs-data.json (labels, title, author, url) — do not call the GitHub API again. For each line use the format: - <pull-request-title> by @<author> in <link-to-pull-request>. Example: - API documentation page by @tom2drum in https://github.com/blockscout/frontend/pull/2725. Capitalize the first letter of the PR title if needed. Assign PRs to sections using each PR’s labels from the stored file and this mapping:

  Section	Labels
  New Features	feature, enhancement, client feature
  Bug Fixes	bug
  Performance Improvements	performance
  Dependencies updates	dependencies
  Design updates	design
  DX & tooling	refactoring

If a PR has no matching labels, try to categorize it based on its description (the body field in the release-prs-data.json file). If the section remains unclear, categorize it as "Other Changes." Never exclude a PR from the notes. The list of PRs in the release notes must match exactly the list from "Get release notes draft." Always double-check this.

• "Changes in ENV variables" section:

  • From release-prs-data.json, find all PRs whose labels include "ENVs" (or ENVs). Use their body field as the PR description.
  • For each of those PRs, strip the "Checklist for PR Author" part from the body if present. Then, summarize the changes to the ENV variables and rephrase them if necessary. If you are unable to determine the changes or are unsure, use the placeholder: "Cannot find any changes in ENVs in PR description."
  • Write the section in this form (grouped by PR number):

    - <pull-request-number>:
        - <change-1>
        - <change-2>
    

  • Examples:
    • #3005
      • Added NEXT_PUBLIC_AD_BANNER_ENABLE_SPECIFY to enable the Specify ad provider for users with a connected wallet.
      • Removed the hype option from the NEXT_PUBLIC_AD_BANNER_PROVIDER variable values.
    • #2968
      • Added NEXT_PUBLIC_MEGA_ETH_SOCKET_URL_METRICS to display information on the uptime dashboard page.

• "Compatibility" section:

  • List only the API versions this release raises — the diff, not the full set of services the app needs. A service whose required version is unchanged from before is not mentioned.
  • From release-prs-data.json, read each PR body's Minimum API version section. For every service a PR names, add a row at the highest version among all PRs that name it. Ignore PRs whose section says "None" or that have no such section (PRs opened before it existed).
  • Map the PR's service to a row: "Core API" → the Blockscout API row; a microservice → its <name> microservice API row.
  • If no PR names an API version, the section lists no services — leave the table empty.

• Final edits in the release notes file:

  • Update "Full list of the ENV variables" and "Full Changelog" with the correct version tags/links.
  • Update the "New Contributors" section if the "Get release notes draft" response included new contributors.

4. Verify with the user (stop and wait)

The release notes draft and the doc changes are now prepared but nothing has been committed or published. Hand control back to the user for review:

• Tell the user the path to the release notes draft (./RELEASE_NOTES_<release-tag>.md) so they can open and manually edit it.
• Show a git diff of the doc changes (docs/ENVS.md and docs/DEPRECATED_ENVS.md) so they can see exactly what changed and edit those files too if needed.
• Explicitly ask the user to reply once everything is in place.
• Stop and wait. Do not commit, tag, or push anything until the user confirms.
• After the user confirms, re-read docs/ENVS.md, docs/DEPRECATED_ENVS.md, and the release notes draft, since the user may have edited them.

5. Commit and push the docs to main

Once the user has confirmed:

• Stage only the changed files under docs/ (typically docs/ENVS.md and docs/DEPRECATED_ENVS.md). Stage them explicitly by path — never git add -A.
• Do not commit the release notes draft (RELEASE_NOTES_<release-tag>.md) or the temp artifact release-prs-data.json (the latter is gitignored anyway).
• Commit with the message chore: prepare release <release-tag> (e.g. chore: prepare release v1.3.0).
• Push directly to main (branch protection is off for the release author). If there were no doc changes to stage, skip the commit/push and continue.

6. Create and publish the pre-release

Publish a pre-release for the -alpha variant of the tag. This single command creates and pushes the -alpha tag, which fires the pre-release.yml workflow (it triggers on a pushed tag matching v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+-[a-z]+*).

• Build the alpha tag by appending -alpha to the release tag: <release-tag>-alpha (e.g. v1.3.0-alpha).
• Run:

  gh release create <release-tag>-alpha \
    --target main \
    --prerelease \
    --title "<release-tag>-alpha" \
    --notes-file ./RELEASE_NOTES_<release-tag>.md
  

  • --prerelease is GitHub's "Pre-release" release label (the prerelease boolean) — it marks the release as non-production-ready.
  • --target main makes the tag point at the latest main (the commit you just pushed).
  • The notes body is the draft you prepared (named for the final v… tag, even though the published tag is the -alpha one).
• Capture the published release URL from the command output (or gh release view <release-tag>-alpha --json url -q .url) — you'll need it for the Slack message.

7. Wait for the pre-release workflow to finish (background, auto-resume)

The pushed -alpha tag triggers pre-release.yml, which builds and publishes a Docker image and usually takes ~30 minutes. Do not block the session watching it in the foreground.

• Find the run for the tag:

  gh run list --workflow=pre-release.yml --limit 5
  

  Identify the run for the -alpha tag / the commit you just pushed and capture its <run-id>.
• Start a background watcher so the session stays interactive (the user can keep chatting; the harness re-invokes you when it exits):

  gh run watch <run-id> --exit-status --interval 60
  

  Run this with run_in_background: true. --exit-status returns non-zero if the run fails.
• When the watcher exits:
  • Success (exit 0): continue to step 8.
  • Failure (non-zero): report which job failed with a link to the run (gh run view <run-id> --web URL), and do not post to Slack. Let the user decide how to proceed.
• Fallback: if the background watch dies early (e.g. a network drop over the long run), do a single gh run view <run-id> --json status,conclusion to determine the real state before deciding.

8. Request a staging roll-up in Slack (draft, then send on approval)

Once the pre-release workflow has finished successfully, ask the DevOps team to roll up the new pre-release on staging.

• Build the message from ./slack-message-template.md (in this skill directory) — it holds the format, the breaking-ENV-change rule, the target channel, and the QA cc. Fill it with the -alpha tag, the breaking-ENV list derived per that rule (or None.), and the pre-release URL from step 6. The breaking-ENV input comes from the "Changes in ENV variables" section / release-prs-data.json.
• Draft first: show the user the fully rendered message and wait for their approval before sending it to the channel.