Skill: release

Cut an OpenWork release. The "Release App" workflow (.github/workflows/release-macos-aarch64.yml) builds, signs, and publishes the desktop app assets on the GitHub release. Full runbook: docs/RELEASING.md.

Versions live in git tags only. Every committed package.json holds the permanent 0.0.0-dev placeholder; CI stamps the tag-derived version into the workspace at build time (scripts/release/stamp-version.mjs). A release makes zero commits to this repo — no bump commit, no backfill PR, no packaging PR.

A release is done when the run is green and the GitHub release is published (not a draft) — never when the tag is created.

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Before you tag: open fix PRs and fork PRs

Run this before release:cut or any manual tag. It exists because a fork PR carrying the exact fix for a blank-window-on-launch regression sat open for a day before the affected version was tagged (incident 2026-09-09): fork PRs never receive Warden clearance (warden.yml skips them and warden-clearance.yml requires head_repository == repository), so nothing surfaces them until a human looks.

List, against dev, every open PR opened since the previous stable tag whose title or body matches fix(app)|crash|blank|white screen|regression|first launch, plus every open fork PR created or updated in that window:

export R=different-ai/openwork
PREV=$(gh release list -R $R --exclude-drafts --exclude-pre-releases --limit 1 --json tagName --jq '.[0].tagName')
SINCE=$(gh release view "$PREV" -R $R --json createdAt --jq '.createdAt')
echo "previous tag $PREV created $SINCE"
gh pr list -R $R --state open --base dev --limit 300 --search "sort:created-asc" \
  --json number,title,body,isCrossRepository,createdAt,updatedAt,url \
  | jq -r --arg since "$SINCE" '.[]
      | select((.createdAt >= $since
                and ((.title + " " + .body) | test("fix\\(app\\)|crash|blank|white screen|regression|first launch"; "i")))
               or (.isCrossRepository and .updatedAt >= $since))
      | "#\(.number)\(if .isCrossRepository then " [FORK]" else "" end) \(.title) \(.url)"'

Then the fork backlog: open fork PRs of any age describing a crash or startup failure. Scan the titles; a match for the bug class you are shipping (or any blank/white-screen/first-launch fix) blocks the same way.

gh pr list -R $R --state open --base dev --limit 300 \
  --json number,title,body,isCrossRepository,url \
  | jq -r '.[] | select(.isCrossRepository
      and ((.title + " " + .body) | test("crash|blank|white screen|first launch|regression"; "i")))
      | "#\(.number) \(.title) \(.url)"'

For every PR listed, decide one of:

• Land it first — review it (fork PRs: review-a-contributor-pr skill), merge to dev, then tag.
• Ship anyway — the release goes out without it. This is only allowed as an explicit, recorded decision: paste the list of PR numbers, who decided, and the one-line reason into the release notes PR that changelog.yml opens after publish (docs(changelog): release notes for vX.Y.Z, branch automation/changelog-vX.Y.Z-*), under a Known open fixes heading. If the notes PR has not appeared yet, put the same text in the GitHub release body (gh release edit vX.Y.Z -R $R --notes-file ...) and move it when the PR opens.
• Not a fix / not relevant — say so in the same list; a false positive still gets one line, so the next release does not re-triage it silently.

An empty list is also recorded (Known open fixes: none matched). Tagging with a non-empty list and no recorded decision is the failure mode this step prevents; do not proceed.

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Cut a release (default path)

pnpm release:cut            # dispatches Release App with bump=patch
pnpm release:cut minor      # or major
pnpm release:cut --version 0.19.0
pnpm release:cut:watch      # same as release:cut, then tails the run

Equivalent by hand:

gh workflow run "Release App" --repo different-ai/openwork -f bump=patch

The run resolves the next version from existing v* tags, creates the tag on origin/dev HEAD, verifies it (scripts/release/verify-tag.mjs: stable format + strictly greater than every other stable tag), stamps the version into the CI workspace, builds all 18 electron matrix legs, publishes npm + Daytona + AUR, and flips the draft release public.

The tag ref is created via REST with the org-owned diff-warden app token (a v* ruleset bypass actor; WARDEN_APP_ID + WARDEN_PRIVATE_KEY in the warden-clearance environment). The app's tag retriggers the workflow; that duplicate run is skipped by an actor guard. If the tag push is rejected, the run fails with instructions — fix the ruleset bypass or fall back to a manual admin tag push.

Tag-first (expedited, admins only)

To release a commit that is not yet reviewed onto dev (incident response), push the tag manually — the tag names exactly the code that ships:

git tag vX.Y.Z <sha>
git push origin vX.Y.Z     # v* ruleset grants admins bypass

The Expedited Release Audit workflow opens a post-hoc review issue when the tagged commit is not on dev. Never push dev directly or bypass its branch rules.

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Watch

gh run list --repo different-ai/openwork --workflow "Release App" --limit 1
gh run watch <run-id> --repo different-ai/openwork --exit-status --interval 90

Publishing is gated on the electron matrix, electron assets, and npm publish. Publish AUR (continue-on-error) and Build + Push Daytona Snapshot are non-blocking channels: their failures don't stop the release — rerun the workflow with the same tag once the channel recovers.

Rerun an existing tag (recovery) — transient failures, or replaying non-blocking channels:

gh workflow run "Release App" --repo different-ai/openwork -f tag=vX.Y.Z

If the release is already published, a recovery run skips every desktop build leg and the updater-manifest merge; it replays only npm, AUR, and Daytona. Rebuilding re-signs the installers, and a run that fails before publish-release would leave latest*.yml pointing at bytes that no longer exist. Every auto-update then fails with sha512 checksum mismatch (v0.18.52). Ship new desktop bytes as the next patch.

Recovery runs skip tag creation and monotonicity, build source pinned to the tag, and pick up workflow-file fixes from dev automatically (the workflow definition runs from the dispatched ref; only the checked-out sources are pinned to the tag).

If the run fails before the release is published: land the fix on dev via a normal protected-branch PR and cut the next patch (pnpm release:cut). Only delete/recreate a tag after verifying the GitHub release is still draft-only:

git push --delete origin vX.Y.Z

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Verify

gh release view vX.Y.Z --repo different-ai/openwork --json assets --jq '.assets[].name'

Expect the app assets (openwork-<platform>-X.Y.Z.*, latest*.yml updater manifests), including:

• openwork-mac-arm64-X.Y.Z.dmg
• openwork-mac-x64-X.Y.Z.dmg
• openwork-win-x64-X.Y.Z.exe

The desktop updater 404s on latest*.yml until the release is published — that error in a running app during the build window is expected and self-heals. Spot-check a download URL resolves (302 to release-assets CDN):

curl -sI "https://github.com/different-ai/openwork/releases/download/vX.Y.Z/openwork-mac-arm64-X.Y.Z.dmg" | head -2

Confirm npm view openwork-server version matches.

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Validate a published release

Once the assets are published, run the validate-a-release skill (.opencode/skills/validate-a-release/SKILL.md) against the released mac-arm64 zips before telling anyone the version is safe to roll out: it checks the updater manifests' sha512 and verifies signing/notarization.

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Notes

• Desktop installer fixes only reach users through a new release — the org install door (/v1/install/:platform) 302s to versioned assets.
• den-api discovers published versions from the GitHub Releases API at runtime (ee/apps/den-api/src/desktop-releases.ts): the new version is live for orgs as soon as the release is published — no den deploy needed. The committed generated/desktop-versions.ts is only a cold-start/offline fallback.
• AUR publishes by rendering the committed packaging/aur template (pkgver=0.0.0) in the CI workspace and pushing to aur.archlinux.org — the AUR-side commit is that channel's publish protocol; this repo stays untouched.
• Native workspace deps must stay converged on one major across all apps — electron-builder rebuilds every copy it finds (see #3561/#3563 for the three-release outage this caused).