RELEASING.md

Releasing

This repository uses a changelog-first release flow. CHANGELOG.md is finalized before the tag and GitHub release are created.

Release Steps

1. On every push to main, .github/workflows/auto-update-changelog.yml refreshes ## [Unreleased] in CHANGELOG.md from commit subjects since the latest release tag.
2. Review the generated ## [Unreleased] notes (adjust wording/grouping if needed).
3. Run the release script from a clean local checkout on main:

scripts/create-release.sh 0.1.2

The script performs the release in this order:

1. Validates the requested version (X.Y.Z) and repo state (gh auth, clean tree, branch, remote sync).
2. Updates plugin.php Version.
3. Updates readme.txt Stable tag.
4. Moves the CHANGELOG.md Unreleased entries into ## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD.
5. Commits and pushes the release-prep changes.
6. Creates and pushes the Git tag (X.Y.Z).
7. Creates the GitHub release using the committed CHANGELOG.md version section as release notes.

Notes

• The script supports a safe resume path if the release-prep commit already exists but the GitHub release creation failed.
• The GitHub release body must match the committed CHANGELOG.md section for the same version.

CI Guards

• .github/workflows/release-metadata.yml
  • On pull_request/branch push: verifies plugin.php version matches readme.txt Stable tag.
  • On tag push: also verifies the tag matches the latest versioned CHANGELOG.md section.
• .github/workflows/changelog.yml
  • On GitHub release publish: verifies the release body matches the committed CHANGELOG.md section for that tag.