release-engineering

name	release-engineering
description	Plan and verify software releases with versioning, changelogs, release branches, feature flags, canaries, migration gates, rollback, deployment checks, and release readiness. Use when preparing a release, shipping a risky PR, coordinating app/backend/database rollout, recovering from a bad deploy, or defining release policy for a repo.

Release Engineering

Purpose

Use this skill to turn "ready to merge" into a controlled release. It connects code, data, config, deployment, monitoring, and rollback.

Release Classification

Classify the release before choosing gates:

Type	Extra Gates
Patch fix	focused regression test, rollback proof
Feature release	feature flag, docs/changelog, product acceptance
API or SDK change	versioning, deprecation, compatibility tests
Database migration	data-contract-migrations, backup, backfill, recovery
Config or secret change	config-secrets-environments, rotation, drift check
Infrastructure change	canary, health checks, capacity and rollback

Release Plan

For non-trivial releases, require:

1. Version or release identifier.
2. Changelog entries grouped by user impact.
3. Build artifacts and provenance.
4. Migration and config gates.
5. Canary or staged rollout plan.
6. Monitoring dashboard and alert expectations.
7. Rollback or roll-forward command.
8. Owner, decision time, and abort criteria.

Verification

Use fresh commands from the current session. Typical gates: