prepare-release

name	prepare-release
description	Prepare a new release for the C# MCP SDK. Assesses Semantic Versioning level (PATCH/MINOR/MAJOR), bumps the version, runs ApiCompat and ApiDiff, reviews documentation, updates changelogs, drafts release notes, and creates a pull request with all release artifacts. Use when asked to prepare a release, start a release, create a release PR, or assess what the next release should be.
compatibility	Requires gh CLI with repo access, GitHub API access for PR details and timeline events, dotnet CLI for building and packing, and git for branch management.

Prepare Release

Prepare a new release for the modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk repository. This skill assesses the appropriate Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 level based on queued changes, bumps the version, runs API compatibility and diff tools, reviews documentation, drafts release notes, and creates a pull request containing all release artifacts.

Safety: This skill creates a local branch and PR. It must never create a GitHub release. Release creation is handled by the publish-release skill after this PR is merged.

User confirmation required: This skill NEVER pushes a branch or creates a pull request without explicit user confirmation. The user must review and approve all details before any remote operations occur.

Use the shared release branch reference for branch roles, previous-release lookup rules, and release work-branch naming.

Process

Work through each step sequentially. Present findings at each step and get user confirmation before proceeding. Skip any step that has no applicable items.

Step 0: Sync With Upstream

Every later step reads branches, tags, and file contents from the local repository. Stale local refs produce assessments that are wrong in ways that look plausible: a missing tag makes a released version invisible, and a stale branch hides merged PRs. Establish a complete, current view before reading anything.

1. Identify the remote that points at the canonical repository (modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk). Do not assume it is named origin — in a fork-based checkout origin is often the fork: git remote -v
2. Fetch that remote's branches and tags, pruning deleted refs: git fetch {upstream} --prune --prune-tags --tags
3. Confirm the tag for the most recent published release exists locally and resolves: git rev-parse --verify v{previous}^{commit}

Report what changed as a result of the fetch — new tags, updated branch heads — so the user can see whether the starting state was stale.

Read every subsequent step's branch state from the remote-tracking refs ({upstream}/main, {upstream}/release/{MAJOR}.x), not from local branches, which may lag or have diverged.

Step 1: Select Source Branch

List candidate source/base branches via: gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/branches --paginate --jq '[.[] | select(.name == "main" or (.name | startswith("release/"))) | .name]'

Present the list to the user and ask them to choose the source/base branch. Default selection: main.

The selected branch drives every subsequent step:

1. The branch on which the candidate version is read from src/Directory.Build.props.
2. The "previous release" lookup (constrained to v{MAJOR}.* on release/{MAJOR}.x).
3. The commit range from which PRs are collected.
4. The PR base (--base) for gh pr create at the end of the skill.

See release-branches.md for the structured branch rules.

Step 2: Determine Target and Gather PRs

The user may provide:

• A git ref (commit SHA, branch, or tag) — use as the target commit relative to the selected source/base branch
• No context — show the last 5 commits on the selected source/base branch (noting HEAD) and offer the option to enter a branch or tag name instead

Once the target is established:

1. Determine the previous release tag from gh release list — the highest semver among published releases that are ancestors of the target commit (exclude drafts with --exclude-drafts). Do not order by publication date; see release-branches.md for why the two differ and what breaks. On release/{MAJOR}.x, restrict candidates to tags matching v{MAJOR}.*; on main, there is no MAJOR filter.

2. Get the full list of PRs merged between the previous release tag and the target commit on the selected branch.

3. Read src/Directory.Build.props at the target commit. Extract <VersionPrefix> and <VersionSuffix>; the candidate version is {VersionPrefix} plus -{VersionSuffix} when the suffix is present (for example, 2.0.0-preview.1).

4. Verify the previous release tag is an ancestor of the target commit: git merge-base --is-ancestor v{previous} {target}

   If it is not an ancestor, stop and report. The two histories have diverged, which means the selected source branch is not a continuation of the previous release. Every downstream conclusion would be wrong: the PR range would be computed across unrelated history, and the ApiCompat baseline in Step 7 would report the previous release's entire API surface as removed. This is a source-selection problem, not a compatibility problem — do not attempt to suppress it.

   The usual cause is that the previous release shipped from a different branch than the one selected. Re-run Step 1 and choose the branch that actually contains the previous release, or confirm with the user that a divergent source is intended and why.

Step 3: Categorize and Attribute

Sort every PR into one of four categories. See references/categorization.md for detailed guidance.

Category	Content
What's Changed	Features, bug fixes, improvements, breaking changes
Documentation Updates	PRs whose sole purpose is documentation
Test Improvements	Adding, fixing, or unskipping tests; flaky test repairs
Repository Infrastructure Updates	CI/CD, dependency bumps, version bumps, build system

Entry format — * Description #PR by @author with co-authors when present:

* Description #PR by @author
* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

Attribution rules:

• Harvest Co-authored-by trailers from all commits in each PR (not just the merge commit) to identify co-authors. Do this for every PR regardless of primary author.
• For Copilot-authored PRs, additionally check the copilot_work_started timeline event to identify the triggering user. That person becomes the primary author; @Copilot becomes a co-author.
• Omit the co-author parenthetical when there are none
• Sort entries within each section by merge date (chronological)

Step 4: Breaking Change Audit

Invoke the breaking-changes skill with the commit range from the previous release tag to the target commit. Examine every PR, assess impact, reconcile labels (offering to add/remove labels and comment on PRs), and get user confirmation.

Use the results (confirmed breaking changes with impact ordering and detail bullets) in the remaining steps.

Step 5: Assess Release Version

Using the categorized PRs from Step 3 and confirmed breaking changes from Step 4, assess the appropriate Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 release level. Follow the SemVer assessment guide (owned by the bump-version skill) for the full assessment criteria.

1. Classify the release level:
   • MAJOR — if any confirmed breaking changes are present (API or behavioral), excluding changes to [Experimental] APIs
   • MINOR — if no breaking changes but new public APIs, features, or obsoletion warnings are introduced
   • PATCH — otherwise
2. Compute the recommended version from the previous release tag and branch context:
   • Increment the appropriate component (MAJOR resets MINOR.PATCH to 0; MINOR resets PATCH to 0)
   • For prerelease candidates such as preview.N or rc.N, the recommendation may simply increment the trailing integer per the assessment guide
3. Compare against the candidate version from src/Directory.Build.props. Flag any discrepancy:
   • Under-versioned: The candidate is lower than the recommended level. This is a concern that should be resolved.
   • Over-versioned: The candidate is higher than strictly required. This is acceptable under SemVer but worth noting.
4. Present the assessment with a summary table showing the previous release, change classification, recommended level, recommended version, and any discrepancy with the candidate. Include a brief rationale citing the most significant PRs.
5. Get user confirmation of the release version before proceeding.

Step 6: Create Release Branch and Bump Version

After the version is confirmed:

1. Create a local branch named release-{version} from the target commit (e.g., release-2.0.0-preview.1, release-1.3.1).
2. Update src/Directory.Build.props:
   • Set <VersionPrefix> to the confirmed stable component
   • Set <VersionSuffix> for prerelease versions, or clear it for stable versions; add the element if it is missing
   • Update <PackageValidationBaselineVersion> when appropriate, per the rule in references/apicompat-apidiff.md. Read the current value from src/Directory.Build.props and derive the correct one from the versions actually published; never copy a version from an example. Show the derivation — current value, published versions considered, resulting value, and whether it changes — and get confirmation before editing. If the value changes, the baseline-transition suppression audit is mandatory.
3. Build the solution to verify the version change compiles: dotnet build

This step creates local changes only — nothing is committed or pushed yet.

Step 7: Run API Compatibility Check

Run API compatibility validation against the baseline version. Follow references/apicompat-apidiff.md for the full procedure.

1. Run dotnet pack to trigger package validation against PackageValidationBaselineVersion
2. Capture the ApiCompat output (compatibility issues, warnings, suppressions)
3. If PackageValidationBaselineVersion changed in this release, run the baseline-transition suppression audit before interpreting anything else. Moving the baseline makes suppressions written for the old baseline stale, and the resulting failure looks exactly like a mass breaking change.
4. If there are unexpected compatibility breaks:
   • First, check whether the output says Unnecessary suppressions found. That is a hard failure in its own right, and the CP0001/CP0002/CP0005 lines beneath it are the listing of unused suppression entries, not live API breaks. Regenerate the suppression file and cross-check the API diff before believing them.
   • Then sanity-check the scale. A large number of errors reporting missing API surface — especially spanning whole feature areas — almost always means the baseline does not belong to this branch's history, or that stale suppressions are being listed. Re-verify the ancestry check from Step 2 before interpreting a single error. Never suppress your way out of this.
   • Cross-reference with the breaking change audit from Step 4
   • Present any unaccounted breaks to the user
   • If breaks are intentional, add appropriate entries to CompatibilitySuppressions.xml in the affected project directory — only after the suppression audit is complete
5. Never adjust the thing being validated against in order to pass. Do not change PackageValidationBaselineVersion to silence errors, do not set ApiCompatPermitUnnecessarySuppressions, do not NoWarn CP diagnostics, and do not disable package validation. The baseline is determined by what shipped; suppressions record user-confirmed intentional breaks. If validation fails unexpectedly, stop and report.
6. Confirm the plain CI-equivalent run passes with no generation flags: dotnet clean -c Release; dotnet pack -c Release
7. Record the per-package ApiCompat results — baseline, generated entry count, retained/removed suppressions, plain pack result — for Step 12 and the PR description

Step 8: Generate API Diff Report

Generate a human-readable diff of the public API surface between the previous release and the new version. Follow references/apicompat-apidiff.md for the full procedure, including how to install the Microsoft.DotNet.ApiDiff.Tool from the .NET transport feed.

1. Install Microsoft.DotNet.ApiDiff.Tool from the transport feed if not already installed (requires --prerelease and --add-source pointing to https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/dnceng/public/_packaging/dotnet{MAJOR}-transport/nuget/v3/index.json)
2. Download the baseline packages and build the current version in Release configuration
3. Run dotnet apidiff comparing baseline vs. current assemblies for each SDK package
4. Format the diff as markdown for inclusion in the PR description

If the ApiDiff tool cannot be installed or fails to produce output, STOP and inform the user. Present the error and ask how to proceed. Do not fall back to a manual summary — the user must decide whether to troubleshoot, skip the API diff, or abort.

Step 9: Review and Update Documentation

Review repository documentation for changes needed to compensate for or adapt to this release:

1. NuGet package READMEs -- Run the README content checklist from references/readme-content.md and validate code samples: a. Content checklist -- Open src/PACKAGE.md and verify each item in the checklist:
   • Package-list closure: every shipping SDK package is listed. If a new package was introduced in this release, add it now. Use non-counting phrasing -- do not say "N main packages".
   • Badge strategy: all package badges use nuget/vpre for a prerelease series or nuget/v for a stable release. Switch all badges together if the release type has changed.
   • Release-notes link: add or update the link to https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk/releases/tag/v{version} for the confirmed release version. The tag does not yet exist at prepare time; the link is forward-referencing and resolves when the GitHub release is published.
   • Root README.md sync: mirror any package-list closure changes in the root README.md.
   • Other salient content: descriptions, getting-started links, version-specific notes. b. Snippet validation -- Validate that csharp-fenced code blocks in src/PACKAGE.md and README.md compile against the current SDK. Follow references/readme-snippets.md for the full procedure. Propose fixes for any API mismatches.
2. Conceptual documentation -- Review docs/ for content affected by the changes in this release. Update references to changed APIs, new features, or removed functionality.
3. Versioning documentation -- If the release introduces new versioning-relevant policies (new experimental APIs, obsoletion changes), verify docs/versioning.md reflects them.
4. Changelogs -- If the repository contains changelog files (e.g., CHANGELOG.md), update them with the release information. If no changelogs exist, skip this sub-step and note it in the summary.

Stage all documentation changes for inclusion in the release commit.

Edge Cases for README updates:

• New package introduced -- Add it to the package-list closure in src/PACKAGE.md and README.md. Use the package's <Description> from its .csproj as the short description.
• Release type changes (prerelease to stable or vice versa) -- Switch all package badges between nuget/vpre and nuget/v together.
• Release tag does not yet exist at prepare time -- The release-notes link is forward-referencing; it is verified to resolve during the publish-release step.

Step 10: Draft Release Notes

Compose the release notes that will appear in the PR description and serve as the foundation for the publish-release skill. This is a draft — the final release notes will be refreshed when the GitHub release is created.

1. Preamble — Draft a short paragraph summarizing the release theme. Present it to the user for review and editing. The preamble is required.
2. Breaking Changes — sorted most → least impactful (from Step 4 results). Include the versioning docs link, using the v{MAJOR} slug for the version being released — see release-branches.md.
3. What's Changed — chronological; includes breaking change PRs
4. Documentation Updates — chronological
5. Test Improvements — chronological
6. Repository Infrastructure Updates — chronological
7. Acknowledgements:
   • New contributors (first contribution in this release)
   • Issue reporters (cite resolving PRs) — excluding maintainers. Acknowledgements exist to thank the community; a maintainer filing an issue in their own repository is ordinary project work, not a contribution to credit. Determine maintainer status via gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/collaborators/{user}/permission --jq .permission and omit anyone with admin or write. Maintainers still appear in the reviewers bullet.
   • PR reviewers (single bullet, sorted by review count, no count shown)
8. Full Changelog link using the exact tag, including any suffix (for example, v1.3.1 or v2.0.0-preview.1)

Omit empty sections. Present each section for user review before proceeding. Tag references in templates use v{version} exactly, including prerelease suffixes; the Full Changelog link compares the previous tag to the suffixed tag when applicable.

Step 10b: Review Categorization and Acknowledgements With the User

Do this before committing, and never defer it to the Step 12 summary. Showing the finished notes is not a substitute for this step. A complete, well-formatted set of release notes reads as correct and does not invite scrutiny; users routinely approve it and then find miscategorized entries afterward, once the PR is already open. Ask targeted questions while the answers are still cheap to apply.

Present two compact review artifacts and stop for a response after each.

1. Categorization table. Every PR, its assigned section, and the reason — not just the borderline ones, since the user cannot correct a call they were not shown:

PR	Title	Section	Why
#{number}	{title}	{section}	{what the placement turned on}

Then explicitly surface the judgment calls, naming the PRs and the reasoning that made each one close:

These were the close calls: {PRs} touch code but not shipped packages, so I placed them under {section}. Any of these belong in a different section?

Flag as a close call any PR that touches samples/ or tests/ but not src/, any PR placed in "What's Changed" whose changes are confined to non-shipping paths, and any PR whose title suggests a different section than the one you assigned.

2. Acknowledgements roster. Each person, why they are listed, and their maintainer status:

Person	Reason	Maintainer?
@{handle}	{contribution or issue, and the PR that resolved it}	{yes/no — if yes, omit per Step 10 item 7}

Show entries you excluded and why, so the user can overrule the omission. Ask directly whether the remaining list is right, since acknowledgement errors are about people and are the least comfortable thing to correct after publication.

Apply any corrections before Step 11. Record what changed so the same misclassification is not reintroduced when publish-release refreshes the notes for late-arriving PRs.

Step 11: Commit Changes

Commit all changes to the release-{version} branch:

1. Stage all modified files (version bump, compatibility suppressions, documentation updates, changelog updates)
2. Commit with message: Prepare release v{version}
3. Do not push yet

Step 12: Present Release Summary

Present all of the following details to the user for review. The user must confirm every aspect before proceeding to Step 13.

1. Version number with brief rationale for why this SemVer level was selected
2. Source/base branch selected in Step 1
3. Branch name (e.g., release-2.0.0-preview.1, release-1.3.1)
4. Remote the branch would be pushed to (show the configured remote, typically origin)
5. Files changed — list every file modified in the commit with a one-line summary of what changed in each:

   src/Directory.Build.props — Version bumped from 2.0.0-preview.1 to 2.0.0-preview.2
   src/ModelContextProtocol.Core/CompatibilitySuppressions.xml — Added 2 new suppressions
   README.md — Updated code sample for new API
   docs/experimental.md — Added new experimental API reference
   

6. Draft release notes — the complete release notes from Step 10
7. API Compatibility results — the per-package table from Step 7: baseline version, generated suppression count, retained/removed stale suppressions, and plain-pack result. Do not state that ApiCompat passed without these. Call out any change to PackageValidationBaselineVersion or to any suppression file explicitly.
8. API Diff report — the API diff from Step 8
9. Proposed PR title (e.g., Release v2.0.0-preview.1, Release v1.3.1)
10. Proposed PR description — the assembled content combining release notes, ApiCompat, and ApiDiff

After presenting all details, explicitly ask the user:

Would you like to push the branch and create the pull request?

Confirm the Step 10b review actually happened before asking. If categorization and acknowledgements were never reviewed as their own decisions, go back and do that first — this gate is about publishing mechanics, and burying content questions in it is how miscategorized entries reach an open PR.

Do not proceed without explicit "yes" confirmation.

Step 13: Push Branch and Create Pull Request

Only after explicit user confirmation in Step 12:

1. Push the release-{version} branch to the remote
2. Create a pull request with gh pr create --base {step-1-branch}:
   • Title: Release v{version}
   • Base: the source/base branch selected in Step 1
   • Head: release-{version}
   • Description: The assembled PR description (see PR Description Template below)
   • Labels: Apply appropriate labels (e.g., release)
3. Present the PR URL to the user
4. Monitor CI to completion. Creating the PR does not end this step. Watch every check on the new head SHA until it reaches a terminal state:

   gh pr checks {pr-number} --watch
   

   Then report a per-check table and an overall verdict of green, running, or blocked. Do not hand off with only the PR URL and an invitation to review — the user should not be the one to discover a red build.
5. On failure, retrieve the logs yourself (gh run view {run-id} --log-failed), distinguish product/API validation failures from infrastructure or tooling flakiness, and diagnose before proposing a rerun. For ApiCompat failures, apply the interpretation rules in references/apicompat-apidiff.md before concluding the release is breaking. Present the diagnosis and a proposed fix, then stop — pushing a fix needs the same explicit approval as the original push.
6. Restart monitoring after every subsequent push to the release branch, against the new head SHA. Checks from a previous SHA are stale and must not be reported as current.

Important: No draft GitHub release is created at this point. The publish-release skill handles release creation after this PR is merged.

Edge Cases

• PR spans categories: categorize by primary intent, and surface it as a close call at Step 10b
• PR adds sample code or tests but no src/ changes: Documentation Updates or Test Improvements, not "What's Changed" — the shipped packages did not change
• Issue reporter is a maintainer: omit the acknowledgement; show it as an exclusion at Step 10b so the user can overrule
• User recategorizes after the PR is open: update the PR body, and record the correction so publish-release does not re-derive the original category
• Copilot timeline missing: fall back to Co-authored-by trailers to determine whether @Copilot should be a co-author; if still unclear, use @Copilot as primary author
• No breaking changes: omit the Breaking Changes section from release notes entirely
• Single breaking change: use the same numbered format as multiple
• No user-facing changes: if all PRs are documentation, tests, or infrastructure, flag that a release may not be warranted and ask the user whether to proceed
• Version discrepancy: if the candidate version from Directory.Build.props doesn't match the SemVer assessment, present the discrepancy and let the user decide the final version
• Proposed MAJOR does not match branch MAJOR: if the proposed version's MAJOR doesn't match the branch's MAJOR (for example, proposing 2.0.0-preview.2 on release/1.x), flag this as a warning and ask the user to confirm. Do not hard-fail. This is informational, not a policy enforcement.
• Prerelease bump: when the candidate version has a suffix like preview.N, the SemVer assessment may simply increment N rather than computing MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH. Refer to the SemVer assessment guide's Prereleases section.
• No previous release: if this is the first release, there is no previous tag; gather all PRs merged to the target
• Previous release tag is not an ancestor of the target: stop and re-select the source branch per Step 2. Do not compute a PR range or interpret ApiCompat results across divergent history, and do not suppress the resulting errors
• Previous release tag missing locally: re-run the Step 0 fetch with --tags before concluding the release does not exist; a tag absent locally is far more often a stale checkout than an unpublished release

PR Description Template

The PR description combines release notes, ApiCompat, and ApiDiff into a single document. Omit empty sections. The {version} placeholder is the full version and may include a prerelease suffix (for example, Release v2.0.0-preview.1).

# Release v{version}

[Preamble — summarize the release theme]

## Release Notes

### Breaking Changes

Refer to the [C# SDK Versioning](https://csharp.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/v{MAJOR}/versioning.html) documentation for details on versioning and breaking change policies.

1. **Description #PR**
   * Detail of the break
   * Migration guidance

### What's Changed

* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

### Documentation Updates

* Description #PR by @author

### Test Improvements

* Description #PR by @author

### Repository Infrastructure Updates

* Description #PR by @author

### Acknowledgements

* @user made their first contribution in #PR
* @user1 @user2 @user3 reviewed pull requests

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk/compare/{previous-tag}...v{version}
<!-- Example: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk/compare/v1.3.0...v2.0.0-preview.1 -->

---

## API Compatibility Report

[ApiCompat output — pass/fail status per package and any issues or suppressions]

## API Diff Report

### ModelContextProtocol.Core

[API diff — additions, removals, changes]

### ModelContextProtocol

[API diff — additions, removals, changes]

### ModelContextProtocol.AspNetCore

[API diff — additions, removals, changes]

Release Notes Template

The release notes section within the PR description uses the same format as the final GitHub release notes (used by the publish-release skill). This ensures consistency between the PR and the published release. Tag examples such as v2.0.0-preview.1 are valid and should be used verbatim when the version has a prerelease suffix.

Omit empty sections. The preamble is always required — it is not inside a section heading. The versioning link uses the v{MAJOR} slug for the version being released — see release-branches.md.

[Preamble — REQUIRED. Summarize the release theme.]

## Breaking Changes

Refer to the [C# SDK Versioning](https://csharp.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/v{MAJOR}/versioning.html) documentation for details on versioning and breaking change policies.

1. **Description #PR**
   * Detail of the break
   * Migration guidance

## What's Changed

* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

## Documentation Updates

* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

## Test Improvements

* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

## Repository Infrastructure Updates

* Description #PR by @author (co-authored by @user1 @Copilot)

## Acknowledgements

* @user made their first contribution in #PR
* @user submitted issue #1234 (resolved by #5678)
* @user1 @user2 @user3 reviewed pull requests

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk/compare/{previous-tag}...v{version}
<!-- Example: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/csharp-sdk/compare/v1.3.0...v2.0.0-preview.1 -->