ci: make a release a shipment rather than a merge
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release.yml fired on every push to main, so the trigger was "a PR was
merged" and nothing else decided. That is a version per unit of *work*
rather than per *shipment*: eight releases in twenty-two hours, v0.0.1
through v0.3.1, for one session -- each fanning out to four publishers on
a runner with capacity 1, so roughly forty packaging jobs shipped three
issues while ordinary PR CI queued behind them. pacman, Homebrew and
Obtainium see every one.

The push trigger is gone and workflow_dispatch, which was already there
and already worked, is the whole mechanism. Nothing else had to change to
batch releases, because semantic-release already reads every commit since
the last tag: five fixes and two feats become one minor release with all
seven in the notes. Release frequency was only ever how often this file
fired.

This is the rule index-artifact.yml states and is the other instance of:
a job that mutates state which cannot be rebuilt in ten minutes is
triggered deliberately, not by a push. A release here is a tag, a Gitea
release, an Arch package, a Homebrew formula, a signed APK and desktop
assets -- and an Android version going backwards costs the user their
library.

`dry_run` is what makes a manual trigger usable: the point of pulling a
lever by hand is being able to look first, so the input runs
semantic-release --dry-run -- the version and the notes, no tag, no
release, no publishers. Anything but the literal string "true" releases
for real, because a typo in a dispatch box must not silently turn a
shipment into a green no-op.

Two alternatives were considered and rejected, both recorded on the
issue. A `beta` integration branch relocates the trigger rather than
removing one: it needs a second protected branch carrying the same
required checks, and it *adds* a full check + e2e run per batch on the
very runner whose queue is the complaint. A schedule batches without
anyone having to remember, but puts the decision back on a timer, which
is the thing being removed.

Closes #115
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-18 22:25:11 -04:00
parent b2fe1cb1e0
commit 90f1239fba
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@@ -2309,13 +2309,53 @@ those run at all; `unclaim.yml` is housekeeping on the tracker and
touches no code; only `ci.yml` gates, and it is the one to look at when
deciding whether a push was healthy.
**`release.yml` is the entry point for all of it.** On every push to
`main` it reads the Conventional Commits since the last tag and, if any
**`release.yml` is the entry point for all of it, and it is triggered by
hand.** It reads the Conventional Commits since the last tag and, if any
is releasable, writes the changelog, pushes the tag and creates the Gitea
release whose body is that changelog section. `arch-package`,
`homebrew-formula`, `android-apk` and `desktop-assets` are all keyed on
`v*`, so **the tag push is what starts them**nothing is released by
hand any more.
`v*`, so **the tag push is what starts them**the version, the notes
and the packaging are still nobody's manual work; *when* is the only
decision left to a person.
**It used to fire on every push to `main`, which made the trigger "a PR
was merged".** That is a version per unit of *work* rather than per
*shipment*: eight releases in twenty-two hours (`v0.0.1``v0.3.1`) for
one session, each fanning out to four publishers on a runner with
capacity 1 — ~40 packaging jobs to ship three issues, with ordinary PR CI
queued behind them. Nothing else had to change to batch them, because
**semantic-release already reads every commit since the last tag**: five
`fix`es and two `feat`s become one minor release with all seven in the
notes. Release frequency was only ever how often the workflow fired.
This is the same rule `index-artifact.yml` states — *a job that mutates
state which cannot be rebuilt in ten minutes is triggered deliberately,
not by a push* — and the two are now the only workflows with no push
trigger. A schedule was considered and rejected: a cron batches without
anyone having to remember, but it puts the decision back on a timer,
which is the thing being removed. A `beta` integration branch was
considered and rejected too (#115): it relocates the trigger rather than
removing one, needs a second protected branch carrying the same required
checks, and *adds* a full `check` + `e2e` run per batch on the very
runner whose queue is the complaint.
**`dry_run` is why the manual trigger is usable.** The point of pulling
a lever by hand is being able to look first, so the dispatch takes a
flag that runs `semantic-release --dry-run`: the version and the notes,
no tag, no release, no publishers. Anything but the literal string
`true` releases for real — a typo in a dispatch box must not silently
turn a shipment into a green no-op.
**A prerelease tag is not a shipment, and all four publishers now say
so.** Their trigger is `v*`, which matches `v0.4.0-beta.1`; they guarded
`v0.0.0` and nothing else. Nothing produces a prerelease today — the
guard is there because the thing that would is `prerelease: true` in
`.releaserc.yml`, one line whose blast radius is a public Homebrew tap
and a credential-free APK registry that Obtainium polls. `android-apk`
is the worst of the four twice over, since its `versionCode` maths
splits on dots and would read `1` out of `0-beta` — a wrong number
rather than a failed build, and Android refuses anything not greater
than what is installed.
Four things about it are load-bearing: