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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 boots the released enterprise and cloud binaries through packaged-first-launch and released-enterprise-activated (fresh install, activated install, and a previous-release profile opened by the new build), checks the updater manifests' sha512, and verifies signing/notarization.

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).