release

name	release
description	Trigger the automated release pipeline for Alcove
user-invocable	true
argument-hint	[version] (optional — omit to let the release agent decide)

Trigger the Alcove automated release pipeline. Releases are handled by the Automated Release Agent task running on the staging environment — not locally.

How It Works

The release agent (.alcove/agents/release.yml) runs daily at 6 AM UTC and checks for unreleased commits. To trigger an immediate release:

Steps

1. Create or find an issue to tag

If there's already an open issue, use it. Otherwise create one:

gh issue create --repo alcove-ai/alcove --title "Release vX.Y.Z" --body "Triggering immediate release."

2. Add the immediate-release label

gh issue edit ISSUE_NUMBER --repo alcove-ai/alcove --add-label "immediate-release"

The release agent will:

1. Check for unreleased commits on main
2. Determine the semver bump (features → minor, fixes → patch)
3. Generate changelog in docs/changelog.md
4. Open a PR, wait for CI to pass, merge
5. Tag and push the version
6. Monitor the GitHub Actions release build (builds binaries + container images on ghcr.io)

3. Monitor progress

Watch for the release agent task to appear in the Alcove staging dashboard. It will show up as a running task within ~60 seconds of the label being added.

4. Verify

After the release agent completes:

gh release view --repo alcove-ai/alcove

Notes

• The release agent runs on staging, not locally
• It uses the alcove-developer security profile for full repo access
• Building and publishing containers happens in GitHub Actions (triggered by tag push)
• Do NOT manually tag or push — the release agent handles everything