| name | publish-qalatra |
| description | Cut a full Qalatra release end-to-end — commit code with good notes, bump version, tag, publish a GitHub release, and sync the changelog + docs in ../qalatra.com. Use whenever Justin says "publish", "release", "deploy", "cut a release", or /publish-qalatra. |
Publish Qalatra
Run the complete release process. Justin does not do any of these steps manually — you own all of them, on whatever box you're running on. Do the work, then report what shipped. Don't explain the process back to Justin first — just run it.
This skill is path-portable: it uses relative paths only. The qalatra repo and the website repo are always siblings, so the website is always at ../qalatra.com regardless of the absolute checkout location (Mac, Linux, etc.).
Preconditions
- Run from the repo root (the directory containing
package.json and electron-builder.yml).
- Confirm the website sibling exists before relying on it:
ls ../qalatra.com >/dev/null — if it's missing, do the qalatra release steps, then tell Justin the website couldn't be synced and stop short of step 6–7.
- Both repos are on the
develop branch.
Steps
1. Review what's changed since the last release
git -C . log "$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)"..HEAD --oneline to see commits since the last tag.git status and git diff to see uncommitted work.- Synthesize this into a human-readable summary of everything since the last tag — this feeds the commit message, the GitHub release notes, and the changelog entry.
2. Decide the new version
- Read current version:
node -p "require('./package.json').version".
- Pick the next version (patch unless the changes are clearly feature/breaking). When in doubt, bump patch.
3. Commit all code changes
4. Bump version + commit the bump (MUST come before the tag)
- Edit
package.json version to the new version.
git add package.json && git commit -m "Bump version to X.Y.Z"- Verify before tagging:
git show HEAD:package.json | grep '"version"' must match the tag you're about to create.
- Why this ordering matters: electron-builder reads
package.json for the release name. If the tag points at a commit with the old version, CI publishes a release with the wrong number and the workflow's gh release edit <tag> fails with "release not found". This is what broke the 1.3.1 publish.
5. Tag and push (this triggers the CI release build)
git push origin develop
git tag vX.Y.Z
git push origin vX.Y.Z
- The tag must equal the
package.json version (with a v prefix).
- Tagging triggers
.github/workflows/release.yml: builds the macOS DMG + ZIP (arm64 + x64), code-signs, notarizes, and publishes to GitHub Releases. The in-app auto-updater picks it up from there.
6. Write GitHub release notes
- The CI workflow creates the release. Once it exists, set good notes:
gh release edit vX.Y.Z --notes "<summary from step 1>"
- If the release doesn't exist yet (CI still building), either wait and retry, or create notes now with
gh release create only if CI hasn't — prefer letting CI create it and editing the notes after.
7. Sync the website (../qalatra.com, also on develop)
The website is a pnpm + Nx monorepo. Update these, then commit + push to origin/develop (no separate version/tag needed for the website):
8. Report
Tell Justin: the version shipped, the tag, the GitHub release URL, and which website pages were updated.
Gotchas
- Commit signing is per-box, not part of this skill — each box configures its own git identity + signing:
- Interactive Mac (Justin's laptop): signs via 1Password (
gpg.ssh.program = op-ssh-sign). If a commit fails because the 1Password / GPG / SSH signer can't sign (e.g. the desktop prompt didn't appear), STOP immediately and ask Justin to signal when ready. Do not retry in a loop or disable signing as a workaround.
- Headless box (agent account): signs non-interactively with an on-disk SSH key under its own git identity (e.g.
shi@pirateandfox.com); there is no prompt, so signing should just succeed. If git commit fails with a signing error here, report the exact error and stop — it means the box's git signing config is broken; do not silently fall back to unsigned commits.
- Verify
package.json version == tag before pushing the tag (step 4).
- Never publish the website without the changelog entry — the changelog page is the public record of the release.
