Release checklist

Before publishing a release, review ROADMAP.md and the more detailed implementation plan in development/current-work/RELEASE_PLAN_v1.md to ensure each pillar is on track. The checklist below keeps the release gate lightweight:

  1. Alignment check – confirm every planned change is captured either through the selected pillar in the roadmap or through supporting ADRs, and note the corresponding verification checklist from vx.y.z_plan.md (e.g. v0.10.1_plan.md).

  2. Gating commands – run or re-run the canonical suite using make ci-local to ensure CI compliance and capture the results. This includes documentation builds, link checks, tests, and coverage verification.

    Preserve the pytest --cov summary for the release notes and update the public coverage badge if the percentage changes.

  3. Legacy API gate – verify that the legacy user API contract documented in development/finished-work/legacy_user_api_contract.md is intact. Run pytest tests/unit/api/test_legacy_user_api_contract.py -v and confirm zero failures. If any legacy surface changed, confirm it was explicitly scheduled by the release plan and that the contract doc and parity tests were updated in the same PR (ADR-020).

  4. Ownership sign-off – collect approvals from the section owners listed in docs/foundations/governance/section_owners.md, including the runtime tech verification steps.

  5. Release notes – draft highlights, call out telemetry/plugin optionality, and link to the detailed implementation plan in vx.y.z_plan.md.

Document completion in the release issue template so future audits can trace any regressions back to this checklist.