Software distribution readiness

Software Distribution Readiness

Turn an exact product artifact into one audience-selected, channel-specific, support-ready Distribution Evidence Pack. Architecture readiness, local build, upload, processing, external review, publication, indexing, installation, and live readback are distinct states.

Resource routing

• Read references/distribution-channel-matrix.md only when a mobile app store, alternative app store, web/PWA, Microsoft Store, Steam/PC storefront, or console route is selected. It owns those store/channel states, commerce evidence, and live-readback floor; do not load its store transitions for a CLI-only or package-registry task.
• Read references/cli-and-package-distribution.md for command-line target artifacts, direct downloads, shell and PowerShell installers, npm/npx, Homebrew, WinGet, Cargo, OCI, update ownership, and clean-install evidence.
• Read references/desktop-and-pc-release-readiness.md when macOS, Windows, Microsoft Store, Steam, or another GUI desktop or PC storefront is selected.
• Read references/release-communication.md when the exact release requires a public changelog, update note, migration notice, patch note, support brief, or incident follow-up.

Load only the selected product-format, channel, and communication modules. Current official channel requirements remain execution-time authority.

Workflow

1. Consume an immutable owner-approved product and release target. Identify the audience and invocation journeys, product format, territories, selected channels, exact source revision, version, target artifacts and digests, build inputs, signing/provenance, support floor, and external authority.
2. Retrieve current official requirements only for those product formats, channels, territories, and release actions.
3. Build a channel capability and evidence matrix: target compatibility, package/signing/certification, adapter-to-artifact mapping, metadata/assets where applicable, privacy/permissions, commerce, install/update/uninstall, testing, review or indexing, rollout, halt/recovery, support, and live probes. Mark required channel-by-target rows explicitly; an untested row is unknown, not inherited from another OS, architecture, libc, runtime, or channel.
4. Require and verify one immutable target-artifact set from the product's delivery owner. Every selected package-manager entry, registry wrapper, installer, container, or store package references or contains that exact set; preserve the relationship when a channel requires repackaging. An explicitly selected source-build channel instead binds the exact source revision and controlled build inputs, produces its own attested artifact identity, and must not claim byte identity.
5. Model every supported channel as an explicit state machine with durable receipts and consumer-side readback. Portal-only and partner decisions stay typed external gates rather than invisible checklist items.
6. Verify only OS/runtime integrations required by the declared product and channel behavior. Route unresolved product design back to its owner.
7. Produce blockers by exact dependency, failed proof, external authority pending, or policy floor; assign the next machine action and required live readback.
8. When release communication is selected, bind every variant to the exact shipped identity, audience, user impact, compatibility/support action, locale, destination, publication identity, and correction path.

Select the smallest complete channel set from actual user journeys. Do not publish everywhere by checklist, and do not omit a required ecosystem merely because a direct-download fallback is technically possible.

Composition contract

Consume the exact owner-approved product/release target and only the commerce, privacy, localization, listing, Product Asset, developer-experience, and other upstream artifacts required by the selected product and channels. A free, direct, CLI, or registry release must not fabricate store, commerce, listing, or media dependencies.

The active product repository and delivery profile own source, build, artifact, publish, rollout, rollback, credentials, and channel-adapter mutations. delivery-standard owns their generic source-to-landed-to-published proof ladder. This Skill owns the distribution contract, channel selection, adapter-to-artifact requirements, install lifecycle requirements, and the evidence pack that audits observed channel states; it does not become a second release control plane. developer-product-experience-review owns the wider developer adoption journey. A later product-program observed-state revision may index this pack but the pack must not consume that later revision or a moving “latest” alias.

External partner access, contracts, review, certification, protected signing, law, safety, and physical hardware remain authority gates. Prepare and verify what the selected release requires; never fabricate approval or require adapters for channels outside the declared audience.

When not to use

• Use product-lifecycle-architect when the primary artifact is a cross-domain product-program graph spanning at least three lifecycle domains.
• Use delivery-standard for one language library's ordinary registry publish when no channel portfolio, installer, executable lifecycle, submission, or certification decision exists.
• Use developer-product-experience-review when the independent artifact is the full discovery-to-production developer journey.
• Use store-listing-optimization for listing positioning, metadata, creative order, keywords/tags, asset requirements, and conversion experiments.
• Use app/game design for product semantics and launch-readiness-review for an independent whole-launch verdict.

Guardrails

• Do not claim a channel ready without current authority, exact artifact, signing/provenance, required hardware or certification, publication state, and consumer-side evidence.
• Do not rebuild independently in each adapter, select an unrelated “latest” binary, present a source build as byte-identical, expose raw signing keys, or execute unverified downloads.
• Do not hardcode volatile API versions, quotas, fees, review times, target or locale lists, package-manager acceptance rules, or certification details.
• Do not call a local package, workflow success, upload, review submission, approval, registry publish request, or generated adapter a live release.
• Do not add low-value channels without an audience, owner, automated update path, clean-environment verification, and support commitment.
• Do not submit paid products without exact price, renewal, cancel, restore, refund/support, ledger, and entitlement semantics matched across product, channel, reviewer evidence, and support.
• Do not roll out broadly until the selected product's failure signals and halt, withdrawal, rollback, repair, or forward-fix path are readable.
• Do not create product assets, choose positioning, or redesign the product to make a distribution matrix appear complete; record the owning handoff.

Output contract

Produce one Software Distribution Contract and Distribution Evidence Pack:

1. product, audience and invocation journeys, exact release identity, artifact/provenance map, compatibility floor, and selected channels with reasons;
2. per-channel adapter, authority, package/signing, install/update/uninstall, metadata/assets/privacy/commerce where applicable, testing, review/indexing, rollout/recovery, support, and live-readback matrix;
3. OS/runtime integration evidence and unresolved design handoffs;
4. exact submission, publication, certification, registry, rollout, and consumer installation states with receipts and next transitions;
5. release communication pack when selected;
6. blockers classified as exact dependency, failed proof, external pending, or policy floor, with owner, recovery, evidence, and next machine action.

The pack is complete only when every required target row for each selected channel meets its declared acceptance predicate and strongest claimed state is independently observable. Mutable external observations record when they were read, their freshness boundary, and the event that requires revalidation; a stale observation retracts the stronger claim to unknown. The pack does not imply undeclared channels or the whole product launch are complete.