release

name

release

description

Cut a new kayman release. Use this whenever the user says "release", "cut a release", "ship a release", "publish a new version", "bump the version", or otherwise asks to roll develop into main and publish to GitHub. Drives the project's release workflow: picks the next zero-ver version, runs `scripts/release.sh` to do the develop→main→develop merge dance and version bumps, drafts GitHub release notes from the commit log, and publishes after the user confirms.

Release

Cuts a new kayman release. Most of the mechanical work (branching, version bumps, commit) lives in scripts/release.sh. This skill drives the parts that need judgment or human confirmation: picking the version, drafting release notes, and publishing.

Versioning

The project uses zero-ver: 0.<minor>.<patch>. Major is always 0.

• Bump minor (0.X.0) when the release contains any new feature, breaking change, or other notable change — anything that would land in the 🌟 / 🧨 / 🪜 sections of the release notes.
• Bump patch (0.X.Y) when the only user-visible changes are bug fixes and internal/CI/dependency bumps.

Tags and GitHub release titles are bare versions like 0.11.0 (no v prefix).

Workflow

Step 1: Pick the version

Find the previous tag and the commits since:

git fetch origin
git describe --tags --abbrev=0
git log <previous-tag>..develop --oneline

Apply the versioning rules above to propose a version and tell the user the choice (e.g., "Previous was 0.11.0, I see new features in the log, so I'd cut 0.12.0 — sound right?"). Let the user override before continuing.

Step 2: Run the release script

scripts/release.sh <version> performs the local git work: stash, checkout main, fast-forward pull, merge develop, bump versions in frontend/package.json, backend/pyproject.toml, backend/kayman/main.py, refresh backend/uv.lock, commit 🔖 release: <version>, fast-forward main into develop, and pop the stash.

.claude/skills/release/scripts/release.sh <version>

The script must be run from a clean-ish working tree on the develop branch. It refuses to run otherwise. It does not push and does not publish — those are deliberate later steps.

If the script fails partway through, do not retry blindly; surface the error to the user. Common causes: merge can't fast-forward (someone pushed to main directly), uv lock failed, or a version file's pattern didn't match because the file changed shape.

Step 3: Draft release notes

Get the commits that landed in this release (now reachable from main, not develop, since main contains the release commit too):

git log <previous-tag>..main --no-merges --pretty=format:'%h %s'

Classify each commit into one of five sections using the template at assets/release-notes-template.md. Mapping hints based on the project's emoji-prefixed commit style:

Commit prefix / theme	Section
✨ [feat], new user-facing capability	🌟 Features
anything that removes or renames an API, field, schema, or behavior users depend on	🧨 Breaking Changes
refactors, infra moves, docs, repo reorganization	🪜 Other Notable Changes
🛠 [fix], 🐞, bug fixes	🐞 Bug fixes
⬆️ / :arrow_up: dependabot bumps, CI, lint config, internal tooling	⚙️ Internal

Do not just paste commit subjects verbatim — past releases (gh release view 0.11.0) group related commits and rephrase for a human reader. Skip the release commit itself (🔖 release: <version>). Drop sections that end up empty rather than leaving a bare -.

Write the draft to /tmp/kayman-release-<version>.md and show it to the user. Wait for the user to edit or approve before publishing — release notes are the most visible artifact of a release and benefit most from human review.

Step 4: Push and publish

Once the user approves the notes, confirm once more before each remote-visible action, then run:

git push origin main
git push origin develop
gh release create <version> \
  --target main \
  --title <version> \
  --notes-file /tmp/kayman-release-<version>.md

gh release create creates the <version> tag at the release commit on main as part of publishing — no separate git tag is needed.

Report the release URL printed by gh release create to the user.

Files

• scripts/release.sh — local git + version-bump automation. Idempotent-ish: it bails early on the second run because the tag already exists.
• assets/release-notes-template.md — empty five-section template used as the starting structure when drafting notes.