release-process

name	Release Process
description	Cut a locus-tag release via cargo-release; CI handles publishing and the GitHub Release page.

Release skill

This skill is a quick-reference for the operator. The full procedure — including OIDC bootstrap, rollback, and the topology of every CI job — lives in docs/engineering/release-runbook.md. Read the runbook first when in doubt.

Pre-flight

1. Working tree clean, on latest main, tests green.
2. ## Unreleased block in CHANGELOG.md contains real entries for the new version. create-github-release fails if the resulting notes section is empty.

Cut the bump

git checkout -b release-vX.Y.Z

# patch (perf / bugfix)
cargo release patch --execute --no-publish \
  --allow-branch release-vX.Y.Z --config release.toml

# minor (breaking / structural)
cargo release minor --execute --no-publish \
  --allow-branch release-vX.Y.Z --config release.toml

Rename ## Unreleased → ## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD in CHANGELOG.md, start a fresh empty ## Unreleased block, amend the commit, and push.

Verify

• gh run watch <release.yml run> — all 8 jobs green.
• GH Release page renders the CHANGELOG body and lists all wheels + sdist + .crate as assets.
• PyPI shows the new version with a PEP 740 attestation badge.
• crates.io shows the new locus-core version.
• Docs site exposes /locus-tag/X.Y/ and stable redirects to it.

When something goes wrong

See release-runbook §5 — Rollback. Both registries permit yank but never re-upload of the same version; ship the fix under X.Y.Z+1.

Dry-run

Tag with an -rc.N suffix (e.g., v0.5.1-rc.1) to exercise the full pipeline without touching either registry. See release-runbook §4 — RC convention.