Release

Release

Promote one pinned, user-accepted artifact to an authorised target. This skill owns the authority gate and evidence; runbooks and tools own mechanics.

Entry gate

Require accepted delivery receipt, exact accepted-artifact digest|git_revision, typed action (deploy, publish, share, send or activate), target-bound release authority, owner, disclosure/data policy and project instructions. Implementation acceptance is not promotion authority. Broad project/session authority cannot release or deploy; the promotion grant must bind this artifact, action, target, expiry and applicable constraints.

Start from canonical RELEASE.template.json. The validator accepts only that typed receipt and fails closed on every other shape.

Readiness

Record and verify:

• action, target ID/kind, provider-independent tier and disclosure boundary;
• authority covering the target, artifact, operations, expiry, secrets, communication, public disclosure and irreversibility;
• state/data impact: ordered steps, compatibility window and purpose-typed evidence bound to passing checks;
• bounded promotion plan, exposure cap and stop conditions;
• realistic rollback, revocation, recall, deactivation, replacement or containment plan, with owner and time bound;
• proof requirements, evidence source, owner, close condition and observation window when outcome needs time;
• recipient/audience validation, retention and required communications.

Public distribution can be copied after deletion. Mark residual risk irreversible, document reversal limits and require explicit authority. none reversal needs the same gate. Test production reversal regardless of provider naming. Keep domain migration/publication checks in project runbook/evidence; destructive or non-backward-compatible change still needs the global impact/authority gate.

Run read-only gate before requesting promotion:

${AGENTS_HOME:-$HOME/.agents}/skills/release/scripts/validate_release.py --gate ready RELEASE.json

The CLI binds artifact to the live delivery receipt. Unit-policy tests may call validate(..., structural_only=True) without a root; it cannot authorise promotion.

Promote and verify

1. Obtain explicit user approval for artifact, target and plan.
2. Use one serial operator; reviewers cannot issue external actions.
3. Execute only authorised command, connector or named user operation. Record operation, actor, UTC interval, result/evidence; never expose secrets.
4. Prove the target-visible outcome against predeclared requirements.
5. On a stop condition, contain exposure and run the approved reversal or escalate. Do not improvise an irreversible recovery.
6. Preserve the receipt, update project state and route defects to diagnose or the domain incident process.

Validate terminal evidence with --gate complete. complete means the outcome was proved, rather than that an operation merely succeeded. reversed and failed remain explicit outcomes with evidence and follow-up owners.

User gates

Users own production promotion, external sending, public publication, irreversible disclosure or data changes, and acceptance of degraded safeguards. Agent may prepare and verify; it may execute only within explicit authority.

Adapter-absent path

Console, Herdr and GitHub are optional. Use canonical project artifacts and emit the skill-owned artifact kind in portable-workflow.v1.json. That filesystem artifact records workflow evidence; it cannot release or deploy and never substitutes for target-bound user authority.