release-process-guardrails

name	release-process-guardrails
description	Guardrails for protected-branch release flow (PR-only, merge-then-tag, CI gates). Use this skill for any release/tag/publish/merge workflow in this repo.

Release Process Guardrails

When to use

• User asks to release, tag, publish, merge, or push to main
• User wants to create GitHub releases or tags
• User asks to clean up release branches or align local and remote main

Must follow

• Protected main requires PR flow; direct pushes to main are blocked
• Merge PR first, then create tag and GitHub release
• Verify CI and code scanning are green before merge
• If local main diverges from origin/main, prefer reset to origin/main over creating a merge commit
• Use required closeout checklist artifacts before declaring release complete:
  • docs/VERIFY-RELEASE.md
  • .github/skills/release-verification-checklist/SKILL.md

Checklist

1. Ensure PR exists for release changes
2. Wait for CI (PSScriptAnalyzer, Pester) to finish successfully
3. Pull and triage GitHub Copilot PR review comments before merge
4. Merge via squash (unless policy says otherwise)
5. Sync local main to origin/main
6. Tag release on the merge commit
7. Create/verify GitHub release notes
8. Verify published release metadata with gh release list

Common pitfalls

• Tagging or publishing before PR merge (tags point to local-only commits)
• git pull creating merge commits on protected branches
• Assuming bot reviews satisfy human approval rules

Useful commands

• PR status: gh pr view <id> --json mergeStateStatus,statusCheckRollup,reviewDecision
• Merge (squash): gh pr merge <id> --squash --delete-branch
• Tag release: git tag vX.Y.Z; git push --tags
• Release notes: gh release create vX.Y.Z -t "vX.Y.Z" -n "..."
• Align local main: git fetch origin; git reset --hard origin/main
• Verify release publication: gh release list --limit 10