promptkit/docs/policy/release.md

# Release Policy

**Base Policy Version:** 1.6

**Last Updated**: 2026-10-08

**Upstream Source:** [release.md](https://gitea.maximumdirect.net/eric/policy/src/commit/e833faddf120c789a9b45348edaf75720de16348/docs/policy/release.md)

## Purpose

This policy defines a proportionate workflow for validating and publishing an
intended source revision under a fresh version. Releases should require little
routine intervention, avoid repeated work, and preserve published contents.

Adopt stronger verification or reproducibility requirements through an explicit
project-specific decision justified by the intended audience and support needs.

The repository-specific commands belong in `docs/release.md`. Historical release
summaries belong in `docs/releases/`. The procedure must agree with the adopted
policy and link to it rather than introduce additional release requirements.

## Release Model And Completion

A source release identifies one exact committed source revision through an
immutable version tag and a version-matched, checked-in release note. The
primary release branch is `main` unless the adopted policy specifies otherwise.
The procedure must name the authoritative publication remote.

A successful push of the intended tag, with its source commit available on the
authoritative primary branch, completes the release. The source commit may be
pushed before the tag or published together with it through an atomic push.
The procedure must choose and document the supported approach.

Release commands must finish at successful publication. They must not wait for
or poll CI, require successful CI status, inspect downloadable artifacts, or
check consumer installation or Go module availability as completion gates.
A failed or ambiguous push requires resolving the authoritative remote state
before declaring success or retrying; successful pushes do not require a
separate remote read-back gate.

Repositories may publish source only. Additional binaries, images, packages,
checksums, or other declared deliverables may be published asynchronously from
the tagged source. The procedure must identify those deliverables and the
responsibility of their automation. Published deliverables must be traceable
to that source and identify the same version.

Track source-release completion and artifact delivery separately. Report delivery
failures and optional investigations under artifact-delivery status.

## Versioning And Compatibility

Stable releases use Semantic Versioning in the form `vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH`, with
no leading zeroes. Prereleases require an explicit adopted policy defining
their format and use.

The selected version must be unused locally and on the authoritative remote.
Do not require queries to every configured remote or publication service.
A version known to have already been published must not be reused, even if the
normal guards do not inspect that channel. Adding a distribution channel
requires a deliberate update to the policy and procedure where needed.

For releases at or after `v1.0.0`:

- a major release may make intentional incompatible changes;
- a minor release may add backward-compatible behavior or raise the Go consumer
  minimum as described below; and
- a patch release may make backward-compatible fixes.

Before `v1.0.0`, a minor release may change a documented public, operational,
configuration, data, integration, or compatibility contract when the release
note explains the impact and required consumer action. A patch release must
not intentionally break those contracts within its minor line.

Additional compatibility promises and deliberate exceptions belong in the
adopted policy or canonical contract documentation. Release notes explain
changes; they do not redefine current compatibility contracts.

## Consumer Minimum And Release Toolchain

Distinguish the minimum toolchain supported for consumers from the toolchain
maintainers use to build and validate a release. Record the consumer minimum in
the language's standard metadata and explain its support meaning in canonical
documentation. Define the selected release toolchain and its setup commands in
`docs/release.md`. Toolchain selection and upgrade cadence are repository-specific
choices.

For Go repositories, normally declare the initial stable release of the selected
series as the consumer minimum, such as `go 1.26.0`. Use a higher patch minimum
when a dependency or an identified correctness fix requires it, and document
the reason.

For release-policy purposes, successful build and release validation on the
selected Go patch release are sufficient to presume support across that Go
series, subject to the declared consumer minimum and concrete evidence of
incompatibility. Investigate specific compatibility concerns as they arise.

Use the selected release toolchain for candidate validation and release builds,
including CI jobs performing those tasks. A newer validation patch version alone
leaves the consumer minimum unchanged.

A minor release may raise the Go consumer minimum, including from one Go series
to the next, both before and after `v1.0.0`. This is an explicit exception to the
backward-compatibility requirement for minor releases. Patch releases preserve
the consumer minimum. Explain an increase's impact and required consumer action
in the release note. Other incompatible changes remain subject to the versioning
rules above.

## Release Documentation And Preparation

Every new release must include `docs/releases/<version>.md` in the tagged
source tree. Use the complete version tag as the filename and begin with a
title containing the product name and that exact version.

Include a short summary and any relevant compatibility impact or upgrade
instructions. Choose sections suited to the release and keep the note
proportionate to the change.

Keep exact current contracts in their canonical documents and update affected
documentation with the behavior change. Link to those documents from the note
where useful. If annotated tags are used, derive their summary from the
checked-in note.

Include the release footer defined by the [OSS policy](oss.md#discoverability)
in each new release document and preserve it on the hosted download page. The
release procedure defines the concrete URLs and publication mechanics. Prepare
these links with the release note; they do not add a network check or approval
gate.

Handle version selection, release-note content, and retirement of completed
roadmaps during preparation. Preserve planned and deferred work and repair
affected links when retiring roadmaps. Reuse ordinary change review for
unintended files, credentials, and private data. Scope release-content review
to the tagged source.

## Candidate Validation

Provide one publication command that validates the final committed candidate,
checks publication state, and publishes the intended refs. A validation-only
mode or command may be provided for diagnosis, but must not be a required step
before publication repeats the same checks.

Run the complete deterministic, offline default test suite once for the final
candidate, following the [testing policy](testing.md). For repositories that
publish builds, verify the required build targets. Select those targets for
the application's actual support commitments; native testing on each platform
and access to particular hardware are not default release prerequisites.

Additional gates must address a concrete risk that the existing checks do not
adequately cover. Do not automatically require linting, race testing, module
hygiene audits, documentation audits, credential scans, example validation, or
expanded platform matrices solely because they are possible. Retain such
checks when their distinct protection justifies their cost. A one-time migration
check must not silently become a permanent release requirement.

Release tests must not require real credentials, mutable application services,
paid APIs, provider probes, or inference calls. The procedure may describe dependency
preparation separately from offline validation.

Avoid duplicate validation across release phases. Successful checks for the
same final candidate need not be repeated solely to satisfy another phase;
any reuse must clearly apply to that exact candidate. Persistent validation
caches are not required. If the candidate changes, validate the new candidate.
Cheap publication-state checks may be repeated immediately before pushing
because local or remote state may have changed during validation.

Automate mechanical guards. Human review gates are strongly disfavored: add one
only through an explicit project-specific policy decision explaining the
concrete risk and why ordinary change review or automation is insufficient.
Do not add routine confirmations for checks the command can perform itself.

## Publication Guards

Automate the checks needed to publish the intended source under a fresh version:

- the version has the adopted format and is unused locally and on the
  authoritative remote;
- the worktree and index are clean on the primary release branch;
- the source being published is the exact candidate that passed validation,
  including its matching release note;
- the remote primary branch already identifies that candidate, or an atomic
  source/tag push will advance it to that candidate without discarding remote
  history; and
- the tag identifies the validated candidate and only the intended refs are
  published.

Fetch the authoritative branch and tag state as needed for these checks.
Do not force branch or tag updates to bypass a failed guard. Publish explicit
refs rather than all local tags. Do not require CI success, publication-service
availability checks, or a separate manual confirmation for each guard.

## Immutability And Failure Recovery

Published version tags and published contents are immutable. Do not move,
overwrite, recreate, or delete a published tag, or replace a published artifact,
checksum, signature, provenance statement, or release note under that version.
The checked-in note at the immutable tag is that release's historical record.

If validation fails before publication, correct and commit the candidate and
rerun the publication command. If a push fails or its outcome is ambiguous,
inspect the authoritative remote before retrying. Remove an unpublished local
tag only after confirming it was never published or used by a release channel.
An unavailable remote leaves publication status unknown; do not overwrite a tag
to resolve uncertainty.

Transient network, authentication, CI, or consumer-availability failures do not
by themselves require a new version. Asynchronous delivery may be retried from
the same immutable tag. Missing artifacts may be published later, provided
existing published contents are not replaced and the additions remain consistent
with the tagged source and any already-published checksum manifest. If that
cannot be achieved, publish a new version.

A defect requiring changes to published source or contents requires a corrected
commit, a new semantically appropriate version, a matching release note, and
the release procedure again. Leave the original release intact. A channel's
yank, deprecation, or advisory mechanism may warn consumers away from a defective
release without replacing its contents or reusing its version.

## Repository Release Procedure

Maintain `docs/release.md` as a short, executable maintainer runbook. It must
identify:

1. prerequisites, selected release toolchain, primary branch, and authoritative
   remote;
2. version and release-note preparation;
3. one publication command with its selected local checks and automated guards;
4. declared deliverables, required build targets, and automation responsibilities;
5. the successful-push completion point and separately reported delivery status;
   and
6. failure handling, ambiguous-push recovery, and asynchronous delivery retries.

Use copyable commands where practical. Keep optional diagnostics and consumer
verification clearly optional. The procedure must not turn preparation work,
ordinary change review, or post-publication investigation into additional
release gates.

## Promptkit Release Configuration

The release-note requirements were adopted on 2026-09-23 and licensing
navigation on 2026-09-26. Apply them prospectively; previously published notes
and tags retain their original records.

Promptkit publishes source-only Go modules from main to origin on Gitea, using
annotated stable SemVer tags. It has no binaries, hosted download pages, or
asynchronous deliverables. The source commit is pushed through main before the
tag. The [release procedure](../release.md) owns commands and recovery.

Release preparation uses the latest Go installation available in the development
environment to build the maintainer release executable and validate the
candidate, including the consumer examples. Keep that same local toolchain
active throughout those operations.

For a minor release, advance Promptkit's consumer minimum to the initial stable
release of that Go series, retaining a higher patch minimum when required by a
dependency or an identified correctness fix. Patch releases preserve the
existing consumer minimum. Commit any module update before validating the final
candidate. The [release procedure](../release.md#prepare-the-candidate) owns
setup commands, and the consumer guide explains
[Go compatibility](../consumers/pkg-promptkit.md#go-compatibility).

Use a title containing `Promptkit` and the exact version, followed by a short
summary and any relevant compatibility impact or upgrade instructions. The
note is committed with the candidate and supplies the annotated tag message.
No fixed set of section headings is required.

The [publication command](../../scripts/release.sh) delegates to the released
ReleaseKit tool selected in `go.mod`. The committed
[profile](../../releasekit.json) selects the race-enabled Go suite, full vet,
committed Go formatting, local Markdown links, workspace and filesystem
replacement inspection, and the offline semantic checks for the three
maintained consumer examples. These are the selected checks for the final
candidate; a separate ordinary test run or standalone build is not an
additional release gate. The upstream tool owns candidate, remote, and tag
publication checks. It returns native status 0 for confirmed publication, 1
for a known validation or publication failure, 2 for invalid input or profile,
and 3 when the push outcome is unknown. For status 3, resolve the exact
captured publication endpoint before retrying; the repository-specific
[procedure](../release.md#failure-recovery) links to the upstream recovery
instructions. Do not wait for CI or Go module availability. Licensing footer
URLs are preparation work, not a network gate.

## Catalog Profile Compatibility

External catalog profile data may be added, removed, renamed, or modified
without deprecation or advance notice. This exception is limited to profile
data imported from the maintained catalog modules. It does not weaken ordinary
compatibility for Promptkit's public Go API, configuration and format semantics,
runtime behavior, catalog-module APIs, manifest schema, backend definitions, or
consumer-owned definitions.

Within the catalog versions selected and tested by a Promptkit release, and
unless a consumer overrides the name or its base, Promptkit keeps the literal
profile IDs `promptkit-openrouter-standard` and
`promptkit-openrouter-auto` available. The names do not promise a permanent
model, backend, routing behavior, settings, cost, output, or upstream
availability. The [framework format reference](../formats.md#built-in-profile-catalog)
owns their current definitions.

`v0.10.0` is the initial minor release for this compatibility transition.
Afterward, catalog-only updates and adjustments to the current selections may
ship in a patch release when all other compatibility obligations remain intact.
External profile removals can require consumer action; they are not automatic
migrations.

Catalog adoption and release validation remain local and offline. They do not
probe provider endpoints, request model lists, or make inference calls.