flowfile-change-control

name

flowfile-change-control

description

How changes to the Flowfile monorepo are classified, gated, versioned, and released — version-lockstep bump/check machinery, the stub and formula-docs drift gates, Alembic migration discipline, deliberate dependency pins (fastapi, polars), the v*/wasm-v* release-tag mechanics, real branch-protection state (ghost required checks, admin bypass), and the standing no-commit/no-stash agent working agreement. Use when bumping the app version, adding an Alembic migration, touching flowfile_frame's public API or the formula docs generator, editing a pinned dependency (fastapi, polars, litellm), preparing or reviewing a release/tag, wondering why a PR won't go green, or deciding whether an agent may run `git commit`/`git stash`.

Flowfile change control

When NOT to use this skill

• Writing or debugging tests → flowfile-testing-and-validation.
• Local dev-server / build / Docker setup → flowfile-build-and-env.
• Env vars and feature flags → flowfile-config-and-flags.
• Cross-package contracts (core/worker/kernel/shared) → flowfile-architecture-contract.
• Digging into a specific past bug for its own sake → flowfile-failure-archaeology.
• Writing/updating docs or CLAUDE.md files → flowfile-docs-and-writing.

This skill is the gate-keeper: what is and isn't allowed to change, how CI proves it, and how a release actually ships.

---

1. How change is classified and gated here

Every change lands in one (or more) of these lanes. Know your lane before you touch files:

You're touching	Gate that fires	Where it's defined
Any of the 5 version manifests	version-sync job (test.yaml), tag --expect gates on release	tools/check_version_sync.py
flowfile_frame public API (FlowFrame, Expr, submodules)	check-stubs job	make check_stubs
docs/users/formulas/functions.md or the polars-expr-transformer pin	check-formula-docs job	make check_formula_docs
flowfile_core/flowfile_core/database/models.py	none automated — you must add a migration yourself	Alembic, §4
pyproject.toml deps (fastapi, polars, litellm)	none automated — these are load-bearing pins, see §5	—
Anything else backend/frontend	backend-tests matrix / test-web / relevant path-filtered workflow	.github/workflows/*.yml(.yaml)

CI is 15 workflow files under .github/workflows/ as of 2026-07-03 (v0.12.7) — root CLAUDE.md's "12 workflows" table is stale; it's also missing claude.yml (interactive @claude agent) and claude-pr-review.yml (automatic Claude review posted on every non-draft PR — contributors are not told this happens anywhere in the docs). The root CLAUDE.md also claims the legacy codeql.yaml "was removed" — it is still tracked on origin/main and fails every Monday (references .github/codeql/codeql-config.yml, which does not exist; .github/codeql/ is an empty dir). This is harmless noise, not a blocker: GitHub Advanced Security default setup is separately configured and live (gh api repos/<org>/Flowfile/code-scanning/default-setup → "state":"configured", weekly, covers python/js-ts/actions/rust) and is what actually reports CodeQL results.

test.yaml (the primary CI gate, ~620 lines) is the only workflow with a concurrency group: PR runs cancel superseded runs of themselves, but main-branch runs are never cancelled — the file's own comment explains why: "docker-publish / release pipelines key off completed main builds."

---

2. Non-negotiables — with rationale and the incident behind each

2a. Never force-push main

CONTRIBUTING.md: "Don't force-push to main. Releases build from it." docker-publish.yml triggers on every push to main (paths-filtered) and rebuilds 6 Docker images; test.yaml runs full CI from main. Live branch protection additionally sets allow_force_pushes: false, and repo ruleset id 2660650 ("Only admin commits") adds non_fast_forward + required_linear_history blocks (verified live via gh api repos/.../branches/main/protection and gh api repos/.../rulesets). A force-push to main would desync in-flight release/Docker pipelines that key off a specific commit.

2b. Version bumps move in lockstep — never hand-edit a manifest

Five files carry the app version and must always agree:

1. pyproject.toml → [tool.poetry] version (line 3)
2. shared/_version.py → __version__
3. flowfile_frontend/src-tauri/Cargo.toml → [package] version
4. flowfile_frontend/package.json → "version"
5. flowfile_frontend/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json → "version"

This exists because of a real production incident (commit b21f518c, PR #547, "Centralize version management across all manifests"): the version used to be read from 8 places with drifted hardcoded fallbacks (0.5.0 / 0.12.0 / 0.12.3 / "unknown"). In frozen PyInstaller sidecars, importlib.metadata.version("Flowfile") doesn't resolve, so a fallback could write a non-version string into the NOT NULL db_info.app_version column — breaking desktop startup. The fix built the tooling below; use it, don't reinvent it.

# Bump — rewrites all 5 files, nothing else
python tools/bump_version.py X.Y.Z
make bump-version VERSION=X.Y.Z        # same, via Make

# Check — prints all 5, exits 1 on drift
python3 tools/check_version_sync.py
make check-version                     # same, via Make

# Release-gate form: also assert the canonical version equals a value
python3 tools/check_version_sync.py --expect X.Y.Z

Gotchas:

• The bump script's own last line of output is "Done. Refresh Cargo.lock (cargo update -p flowfile) and commit." — it does NOT refresh Cargo.lock for you; run cd flowfile_frontend/src-tauri && cargo update -p flowfile as a manual follow-up before opening the PR.
• kernel_runtime/pyproject.toml (currently 0.4.0) and flowfile_wasm/package.json (currently 0.1.0, the flowfile-editor npm package) are deliberately NOT synced to the app version — they have their own release cadence (kernel image version, wasm-v* npm tags). Don't "fix" them to match.
• The version-sync CI job runs unconditionally on every push/PR but is not in test-summary's needs list and is not a required branch-protection check — a version-sync failure fails that job but won't by itself block a merge the way you'd expect. Don't rely on it as your only signal; run make check-version yourself before opening a version-touching PR.

2c. Stub drift gate (make check_stubs) — fails CI silently for newcomers

flowfile_frame ships committed .pyi type stubs for its public surface (FlowFrame, Expr, every submodule, py.typed). If you add/change/remove a public method, class, or top-level symbol in flowfile_frame and don't regenerate stubs, check-stubs (CI job, gated on the backend_frame path filter) fails with no obvious link back to what you changed — it just reports a .pyi git diff.

make stubs          # regenerates all .pyi files, then prunes unused imports (ruff --select F401 --fix)
make check_stubs    # stubs + `git diff --exit-code` on the .pyi files; CI runs exactly this

Three generators run in sequence: expr_stub_generator.py → expr.pyi, flow_frame_stub_generator.py → flow_frame.pyi, submodule_stub_generator.py → every other .pyi including __init__.pyi. Always run make stubs after any public API change and stage the diff (agents: hand off the commit per §6) — this is the single most common newcomer-trips-CI moment for anyone working in flowfile_frame. Full stub-authoring guidance lives in flowfile-frame-and-codegen; this skill only covers the gate.

2d. Formula-docs gate (make check_formula_docs) — same failure shape, different surface

docs/users/formulas/functions.md is auto-generated from polars-expr-transformer docstrings (header comment in the file itself says so — never hand-edit it). Bump the polars-expr-transformer pin, or otherwise change what generates that page, without regenerating it, and check-formula-docs (CI job, gated on a formula_docs path filter covering the generator script, the doc file, pyproject.toml, and the lockfile) fails on an unrelated-looking doc diff.

make formula_docs         # regenerate docs/users/formulas/functions.md
make check_formula_docs   # formula_docs + `git diff --exit-code` on that file; CI runs exactly this

Neither CONTRIBUTING.md nor root CLAUDE.md mentions this gate anywhere — a contributor bumping polars-expr-transformer for an unrelated reason will hit a red documentation.yml build with zero signposting outside the Makefile comment. If you see check-formula-docs fail, this is why; run make formula_docs and stage the regenerated page (agents: hand off the commit per §6).

2e. Alembic migrations: numeric prefix discipline

flowfile_core/flowfile_core/alembic/versions/ currently holds 28 migrations (001_initial_schema.py … 028_catalog_namespace_storage.py, as of 2026-07-03 / v0.12.7 — root CLAUDE.md still says "001–021"; that's stale by 7 revisions, don't trust the count in prose, ls the directory).

Rules, with the incident behind each:

• Add a new migration for any change to flowfile_core/flowfile_core/database/models.py; never hand-edit a migration that has already merged to main. Alembic itself was retrofitted in response to a real bug (commit 0ded1ebf, PR #403) after a run-type mismatch between local and Docker databases needed an undocumented downgrade path (006_normalize_run_type.py) — the whole migration system exists because "align local db and worker db" had to be attempted twice by hand before Alembic was added.
• Numeric-prefix collisions bite long-running branches. Two branches cut from the same base each add, say, 029_*.py independently; whichever merges second collides or silently shadows revision ordering. This has already happened in-tree (b484a117 fix migrations on a long-lived branch was a direct fix for exactly this). Before adding a migration, check origin/main's current highest number, not your branch's — someone else may have already claimed NNN.
• Importing flowfile_core has a side effect you need to know about: run_startup_migration() fires automatically at import time (flowfile_core/flowfile_core/database/init_db.py) unless FLOWFILE_SKIP_STARTUP_MIGRATION is set. This runs Alembic against whatever DB get_database_url() resolves to — including your live local catalog DB if you're not careful. Set FLOWFILE_SKIP_STARTUP_MIGRATION=1 for any diagnostic import of flowfile_core that isn't meant to touch the DB.

2f. Deliberate dependency pins — do not "fix" these without a mandate

Pin	Value	Why it's pinned	Evidence
fastapi	~0.115.2 (pyproject.toml)	An upgrade was attempted and reverted; the reason wasn't recorded in the commit message. Treat the pin as deliberate — don't bump it casually.	Commit eff7287b "Reverting upgrade Fastapi" (2026-05-11) on branch feature/LLM-security-patches; the pin has otherwise been unchanged since the file's initial add.
polars	>=1.8.2, <1.40 (pyproject.toml)	Must move together with kernel_runtime's own Polars pin, flowfile_frame, and the version-coupled polars-* plugin packages (e.g. pl-fuzzy-frame-match). Kernel containers read their own poetry.lock at startup to surface/detect drift. Bumping the root pin alone breaks the kernel/frame contract.	Root CLAUDE.md "Things to Avoid"; CONTRIBUTING.md additionally still claims a Windows-only <=1.25.2 ceiling that was removed (single cross-platform pin now) — CONTRIBUTING is stale on this point, follow the pyproject.toml value, not the prose.
API-key hash	SHA-256, flowfile_core/flowfile_core/auth/api_key.py::hash_api_key	Intentional for 256-bit random tokens (no password-guessing surface to slow down with a KDF). The CodeQL "weak hash" alert on this line is a known false positive — do not "fix" it with bcrypt/argon2/PBKDF2.	Root CLAUDE.md; verified in-file (hashlib.sha256(...).hexdigest(), one-way, "never recoverable" per the module docstring).

If an agent (or CodeQL, or a linter) flags any of these three, the correct action is to leave it alone and, if truly necessary, open a Discussion/issue to get the maintainer's sign-off first — not to "fix" it inline.

2g. Deliberate non-features — don't treat NotImplementedError as a TODO

The codebase has a set of intentional, by-design refusals — places where a feature is scoped out, not half-built. Examples: standalone Polars codegen refuses to emit code for external-source / cloud-storage / Kafka / catalog nodes ("Use FlowFrame export" instead — connector_handlers.py, code_generator.py); exported projects raise NotImplementedError for server-backed flowfile_ctx calls (global artifacts, catalog) with warnings surfaced in the export manifest; Kernel (Python Script) nodes are skipped by Export-to-Python; flowfile_frame refuses lambdas in expressions and join_asof/join_where; the bundled flowfile CLI web UI only accepts localhost:63578. If you find one of these while working a task, it is a documented product boundary, not a bug to close — check the surrounding code/docs for the refusal message before "completing" it. Full inventory of these boundaries belongs to flowfile-node-development / flowfile-frame-and-codegen; this skill flags the pattern so you don't file (or fix) a phantom bug.

---

3. Release mechanics

3a. The checklist

1. make bump-version VERSION=X.Y.Z
2. cd flowfile_frontend/src-tauri && cargo update -p flowfile (manual — the bump script tells you to but doesn't do it)
3. make check-version — must print "All versions in sync"
4. Open a PR (branch protection blocks direct pushes to main), get it merged
5. Tag the merge commit lowercase vX.Y.Z and push the tag
6. This fires pypi-release.yml and release.yaml simultaneously (§3b)
7. release.yaml publishing the GitHub Release fires docker-publish.yml again via its release: published trigger (§3c)
8. Manual, and historically never done: assemble and attach latest.json to the release per the schema in flowfile_frontend/src-tauri/SIGNING.md (§3d)

3b. One v* tag push → two workflows

Workflow	What it does	Hard gate
pypi-release.yml	Builds web frontend into flowfile/flowfile/web/static/, poetry build, publishes to PyPI via Trusted Publishing (OIDC) — no API token	python3 tools/check_version_sync.py --expect "${GITHUB_REF#refs/tags/v}" — dies instantly if tag ≠ manifest version
release.yaml	Builds Tauri desktop installers on a 4-platform matrix (macOS arm64/x86_64, Windows, Linux), signs/notarizes macOS, publishes the GitHub Release	Same check_version_sync.py --expect gate, run per-platform before the Rust/PyInstaller build starts

Both gates mean: tag before bumping = both release pipelines fail fast, which is the intended failure mode (better than shipping a mismatched artifact).

wasm-v* tags separately fire npm-publish-wasm.yml (publishes flowfile-editor to npm with provenance). As of 2026-07-03 no wasm-v* tag has ever been pushed to this repo — all historical runs of that workflow were manual workflow_dispatch, and most failed. Treat the npm publish channel as stalled/experimental, not a proven path.

3c. docker-publish.yml fires twice per release cycle

Once on the main-push that merges the version-bump PR (paths-filtered on backend/frontend/worker/kernel dirs), and again on the release: published event once release.yaml cuts the GitHub Release. Docker image tags come from poetry version -s (root and kernel_runtime/) — from the manifest, not from the git tag — so this is consistent as long as §2b held.

3d. The auto-updater gap (verified live, still true)

tauri.conf.json's updater endpoint expects a latest.json asset on each GitHub Release. release.yaml only prints a ::notice reminder to attach one manually (referencing a tools/make_latest_json.py that does not exist in the repo). Verified via gh release view <tag> --json assets on the last several releases: no release has ever shipped a latest.json. Practical consequence: the desktop app's auto-update check 404s and auto-update is inert. If you're asked to "fix the auto-updater," this is the missing piece — not a regression, a feature that was never finished.

3e. Tag hygiene — read before tagging

• GitHub's v* trigger filter is case-sensitive. Capital-V tags (V0.10.1, V0.12.3 exist in this repo's history) fire nothing. Always tag lowercase vX.Y.Z.
• A tag literally named main exists in this repo's tag namespace, which makes git <cmd> main print warning: refname 'main' is ambiguous and can resolve to the tag instead of the branch (tags win over branches in ref resolution). Always use origin/main or refs/heads/main for comparisons, never bare main.
• A suffixed tag (e.g. v0.10.1-rc.1) is auto-flagged as a GitHub prerelease (contains(github.ref_name, '-') in release.yaml) so test builds never become the public "Latest" release — use a -suffix for any tag you don't want promoted.

---

4. Branch protection & required checks — the real, live state

Read this before telling anyone (human or agent) to "wait for CI to go green" or "wait for required checks":

gh api repos/Edwardvaneechoud/Flowfile/branches/main/protection

As of 2026-07-03 this returns 8 required contexts: electron-tests-macos, electron-tests-windows, test-web, backend-tests-windows, backend-tests (macos-latest, 3.11), backend-tests (ubuntu-latest, 3.10/3.11/3.12).

electron-tests-macos and electron-tests-windows no longer exist — they were removed in the Electron→Tauri migration (commit 3777c661, #462). A required context that no workflow ever reports means branch protection can mathematically never be satisfied for a non-admin PR — the checks tab will show those two as perpetually pending, forever.

• backend-tests (ubuntu-latest, 3.13), coverage, kernel-tests, check-stubs, check-formula-docs, docs-test, test-summary, version-sync, all E2E workflows, and the Claude review are not required checks — they can be red and a PR is still technically mergeable by protection rules (modulo the ghost-check problem above).
• Reviews require required_approving_review_count: 1 and require_code_owner_reviews: true, but there is no CODEOWNERS file in the repo (verified: git ls-files | grep -i codeowners → empty) — the code-owner requirement is a no-op.
• A separate repo ruleset, id 2660650 "Only admin commits" (active, targets refs/heads/main), duplicates the same stale required-checks list and layers on required_linear_history + deletion/non-fast-forward/creation blocks. Its bypass actors are OrganizationAdmin (always) and a repository-role id (always) — current_user_can_bypass: "always" for the maintainer.

Practical consequence: the maintainer merges PRs via admin/ruleset bypass, not by waiting for protection to auto-clear. The real aggregate CI signal to look at is the test-summary job in test.yaml (if: always(), fails if any non-skipped job in its needs list failed) — but note test-summary's needs list itself excludes version-sync, so a version-drift failure won't even show up there. If you're asked to verify a PR is "ready," check test-summary and version-sync separately — neither one alone is the full picture, and neither is a required GitHub check.

CONTRIBUTING.md's actual bar (not GitHub's mechanical one) is simpler and is what you should hold an agent-authored PR to:

• One logical change per PR; smaller PRs review faster.
• Commit messages: short imperative subject, "why" in the body if not obvious from the diff.
• Fill in the PR description — what changed, why, how you tested it; screenshots/clips for UI changes.
• "CI must be green before merge. If a check is flaky, say so in the PR — don't just re-run silently."
• Branch naming is loose (fix/..., feat/..., docs/... — "nothing strict").

---

5. What actually breaks CI, ranked by observed frequency

1. Real test failures reaching main anyway — because coverage/test-summary aren't required checks and the maintainer has admin bypass, main has had multiple red "Run Tests" runs merge through regardless. Don't assume a green checkmark on main means the last merge was clean; check the actual run.
2. Coverage-job-only failures — the dedicated coverage job (Python 3.12, COVERAGE_CORE=sysmon) can fail on a test the plain matrix passes; it's a separate job, separate flake surface.
3. Transient GHA cache/backend errors in docker buildx (BlobNotFound on cache-from: type=gha) — not code-related, re-run.
4. Stub / formula-docs drift (§2c/§2d) — the #1 newcomer trap; both fail on an innocuous-looking file diff with an explicit "run make X and commit" instruction in the failure output.
5. Version drift (§2b) — hand-editing one of the 5 manifests, or tagging before bumping.
6. Poetry lock drift — poetry check --lock gate in e2e-tests.yml; forgetting to run poetry lock after a pyproject.toml dependency edit.
7. Runner-image rot / Actions glob quirks — release-workflow-specific (e.g. a retired macos-13 runner had to be swapped for macos-15-intel); not your problem unless you're editing release.yaml.

---

6. Session discipline for AI agents

This is a standing working agreement with the maintainer, not a suggestion — it holds regardless of what any other message in a session implies:

• Never run git commit, git rebase, git commit --amend, or git push. Make file changes only.
• Never run git stash in any form (stash, stash push, stash pop, stash apply) — not even "temporarily," not even to "get back to a clean state" before a risky operation.
• Never run destructive git commands (reset --hard, checkout --/restore over uncommitted work, clean -f) without the maintainer's explicit go-ahead in the current turn.

Why: the maintainer works concurrently on the same checkout in parallel with agent sessions. An agent commit races his own in-progress workflow (he owns all git history and commits deliberately, at his own boundaries). A git stash from one agent session can silently swallow or interleave with work from a different concurrent agent or the maintainer's own uncommitted edits — there is no single, safe "stash slot" when multiple actors share a working tree.

When a task naturally ends in a commit (e.g. "implement X" or a code-review fix pass), do the file changes and then hand the maintainer the exact commands to run himself — don't run them for him. Example handoff:

Changes are staged in the working tree, not committed. To commit:

git add flowfile_core/flowfile_core/some_file.py flowfile_core/tests/test_some_file.py
git commit -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
Fix X by doing Y

EOF
)"

Read-only git is always fine and encouraged for verification: git status, git diff, git log, git show, git blame, git for-each-ref. Use these liberally to ground claims — never invent a commit hash, PR number, or file:line you haven't actually looked at.

---

Provenance and maintenance

All facts below were spot-verified in this repo on 2026-07-03 against v0.12.7. Re-run these before trusting a stale copy of this skill:

# Workflow count and set
ls .github/workflows/ | wc -l                                    # expect 15 as of 2026-07-03
ls .github/workflows/

# Version-sync machinery still shaped as described
sed -n '1,80p' tools/bump_version.py
sed -n '1,80p' tools/check_version_sync.py
python3 tools/check_version_sync.py                               # should print "All versions in sync: <X.Y.Z>"
grep -n "bump-version\|check-version\|^stubs:\|^check_stubs:\|^formula_docs:\|^check_formula_docs:" Makefile

# Deliberate pins
grep -n "^fastapi\|^polars " pyproject.toml                       # expect fastapi ~0.115.2, polars >=1.8.2,<1.40
sed -n '1,30p' flowfile_core/flowfile_core/auth/api_key.py        # expect hashlib.sha256(...).hexdigest()

# Alembic migration count (root CLAUDE.md's number rots fast — trust this, not prose)
ls flowfile_core/flowfile_core/alembic/versions/ | sort

# FastAPI revert incident
git log --all --oneline --grep="Reverting upgrade Fastapi"        # expect eff7287b on feature/LLM-security-patches

# CodeQL dual-state (legacy workflow broken, default setup live)
cat .github/workflows/codeql.yaml | grep config-file
git ls-files .github/codeql/                                      # expect empty (missing config)
gh api repos/Edwardvaneechoud/Flowfile/code-scanning/default-setup   # expect "state":"configured"

# Branch protection reality (ghost required checks, no CODEOWNERS)
gh api repos/Edwardvaneechoud/Flowfile/branches/main/protection
git ls-files | grep -i codeowners                                 # expect empty
gh api repos/Edwardvaneechoud/Flowfile/rulesets                   # expect ruleset id 2660650 "Only admin commits"

# Tag hygiene facts
git tag | grep -E "^V[0-9]"                                       # expect capital-V tags exist (e.g. V0.12.3)
git tag | grep -viE "^v?[0-9]"                                    # expect stray branch-named tags incl. "main"

# v*/wasm-v* release triggers
grep -n "check_version_sync" .github/workflows/pypi-release.yml .github/workflows/release.yaml
grep -n "on:" -A6 .github/workflows/docker-publish.yml            # confirm push(paths) + release:published + dispatch
git tag | grep -i "^wasm-v"                                       # expect empty (no wasm-v* tag ever pushed)

# latest.json auto-updater gap
gh release view v0.12.7 --repo Edwardvaneechoud/Flowfile --json assets | grep -i latest.json  # expect no match

Facts that will rot fastest (re-check on every use of this skill, don't trust cached numbers): current app version (grep version pyproject.toml), migration count (ls the versions dir), workflow file count and names, and the exact required-check-context list from branches/main/protection — all four have already drifted once from what root CLAUDE.md claims.