release-buoy

Release Buoy

Use this workflow when changes in this repo are ready to become a tagged Buoy release.

Read First

• VERSIONING.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CHANGELOG.md
• scripts/release.sh
• scripts/validate-versioning.sh
• scripts/package-release.sh
• scripts/render-release-notes.sh

Release Rules

• VERSION must stay plain X.Y.Z.
• Keep ## [Unreleased] at the top of CHANGELOG.md.
• Only bump VERSION during release prep.
• Tag format must be vX.Y.Z and must match VERSION.
• Release assets are published by pushing the tag and letting GitHub Actions run .github/workflows/release.yml.

Required Steps

1. Confirm the worktree only contains the intended release changes.
2. Decide the SemVer bump from VERSIONING.md.
3. Make sure CHANGELOG.md contains the intended user-visible bullets under ## [Unreleased].
4. Run:

./scripts/release.sh prepare X.Y.Z
./install.sh

5. Verify:

./dist/buoy version
$HOME/.local/bin/buoy version
test -f dist/release/buoy
test -f dist/release/Buoy.app.zip

6. Review the final diff and staged changes.
7. Commit with a release-prep message such as release: vX.Y.Z.
8. Create the annotated tag:

./scripts/release.sh tag

9. Push the branch and tag:

git push origin main
git push origin vX.Y.Z

10. Verify the GitHub release workflow succeeded and that the release contains:

• dist/release/buoy
• dist/release/Buoy.app.zip
• release notes rendered from the matching CHANGELOG.md section

Safety Checks

• Do not tag if validation or packaging fails.
• Do not leave VERSION bumped without also updating the matching changelog section.
• Do not tag unless HEAD is already committed as release: vX.Y.Z.
• Do not push a release tag before the release-prep commit is on the remote branch.