# ceremony One release ceremony for the whole heavy-duty family — implemented once, tested once, documented here, consumed everywhere else by reference. The approach and its constraints live in [#1](https://github.com/heavy-duty/ceremony/issues/1); this README is the operator-facing doctrine that used to live, three times over, in the consumers' CONTRIBUTINGs. - **Adopting or converting a repo** → [docs/CONSUMERS.md](docs/CONSUMERS.md). - **Working in this repo as an agent** → [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md) routes you; [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) has the repo specifics. - **Operating a release, or staring at a red run on main** → read on. ## What a release is **A release is a PR, and merging it ships it** (box#96, building on box#83; rig#47, cast#111 converged on the same doctrine). The ceremony PR — `release: X.Y.Z`, carrying the hand-set `release` label — makes three stamps: 1. **The version goes bare**: `X.Y.Z-dev` → `X.Y.Z` ([lib/version.sh](lib/version.sh)). 2. **The changelog section is assembled — one edit, produced by the tool** (#112). Entries never accumulate in `CHANGELOG.md`: each PR wrote one fragment file, `changelog.d/.md`, and the ceremony PR runs [bin/changelog-assemble](bin/changelog-assemble) — by hand, on purpose, so the section lands in the PR's diff where the panel reads it (#112 D12; a consumer's exact invocation is in [docs/CONSUMERS.md](docs/CONSUMERS.md#assembling-a-release-section)). The tool folds every fragment into a new `## X.Y.Z — DATE` section on top and deletes the fragments it consumed; the [assembled guard](#changelog-assembled--the-stamp-is-exactly-the-fragments) replays that run and refuses a stamp that is not byte-for-byte the fragments' assembly. There is no second edit: the old stamp *re-armed* — put an empty `## Unreleased` back on top — because every PR inserted at that one shared anchor, and between the stamp and the re-arm a PR authored *before* the release landed its entry under whatever now occupied the position — **the section that just shipped** — cleanly, no conflict, no signal (box#108; confirmed cross-repo as rig#66). Fragments make that failure structurally impossible rather than guarded-against: a fragment merged after the release simply sits in the directory and is assembled into the *next* section. There is no anchor left to misplace, and nothing to re-arm — the directory is always armed. 3. **The drill record is present**: `drills/X.Y.Z.md`, non-blank — the evidence the release rests on ([the drill doctrine](#the-drill-doctrine)). (This repo's own ceremony adds a fourth stamp: `CEREMONY_SELF_REF` — the ref consumers' runs fetch this repo at — moves to the version being released, in [release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L123-L132) and every other workflow that carries it. [self-ref-check.sh](.github/scripts/self-ref-check.sh) fails CI here, not a consumer's release, when it is stale.) **The merge is the ship decision; the tag is transcription.** After the merge, [release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L136-L300) asserts its way to certainty, tags the merge commit, publishes the GitHub release with the version's own changelog section as the body — the curated prose, never the generated PR list ([lib/changelog.sh](lib/changelog.sh) is the one canonical extractor) — and re-arms main by bumping to `X.Y.(Z+1)-dev` ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L266-L300)) — the version is the only re-arm left; the changelog needs none (#112). The machine does the transcription because humans err silently and machines fail loudly: **everything asserts its way to certainty and fails loudly, creating nothing** — a wrong release is worse than a missing one, so every failed assert leaves zero artifacts: no tag, no release, no bump. ## The two doors - **The merge door — the paved road.** A push to main ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L140)) runs the [decide table](#what-happens-when-my-pr-lands-on-main); a merged, `release`-labeled PR whose version transitioned to bare is the ceremony, everything legitimate that isn't one is a green no-op, and every half-ceremony dies loudly. Use it for every normal release. - **The tag door — the fallback and the backfill.** A bare `X.Y.Z` tag push — **no `v` prefix**, box's 0.6.0 set the scheme ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L302-L369)) — publishes the same way. The tag is the operator's explicit act, so there is no decide and no label check; the one assert is that **the tag names the tree's own version**, and a mismatch refuses, creating nothing. No `-dev` bump either — the fallback does not rewrite main (cast's precedent). Use it when the merge path is red, for backfills, and for the [first-release edge](#what-happens-when-my-pr-lands-on-main) (row 4). Tag + publish (+ the consumer's artifact hook) happen **in the same job, on purpose**: a `GITHUB_TOKEN`-created tag fires no workflows (GitHub's anti-recursion), so the merge door's tag can never re-enter the tag door and double-publish — and that job is the release's only chance to publish ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L223-L234), #1 constraint 2). ## What happens when my PR lands on main The merge door runs on **every** push to main, and the `release` label legitimately means two things (release ceremonies, and ordinary work *on* the release machinery), so the door's first act is a decision: the six-row table in [lib/decide.sh](lib/decide.sh#L29-L61) (issue #8 — the comment block *is* the spec, and the table is contract-tested offline). Rendered for operators: | # | the tree your merge produced | the run | what it means — and your move | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | version `-dev`, unchanged | green `NOTICE`, no-op | Almost every PR — including release-flow work under the `release` label. Nothing to publish, nothing to do. | | 2 | version changed, still `-dev` | green `NOTICE`, no-op | The post-release bump, or a renumber. "A dev tree is by definition not a release." Nothing to do. | | 3 | version bare, unchanged, already released | green `NOTICE`, no-op | The post-release window: the ceremony landed, the `-dev` bump hasn't. Nothing to do. | | 4 | version bare, unchanged, **never released** | **red, nothing created** | The label says ship but this PR did not mint the version. Mislabeled → drop the label. Meant to release → it forgot the bump; re-do the ceremony PR. A repo whose first version never carried `-dev` ships its first release by the **tag door** — the known first-release edge (cast#111; [lib/decide.sh](lib/decide.sh#L70-L74)). | | 5 | version transitioned to bare, **no merged `release`-labeled PR** behind the commit | **red, nothing created** | A transition nobody declared — a release is a labeled ceremony PR, not a bare push. Label a proper ceremony PR and re-do it, or publish by the tag door if the tree is genuinely right. | | 6 | version transitioned to bare, merged `release`-labeled PR behind the commit | **the ceremony** | Tag → notes → publish → `-dev` re-arm. Your move afterwards: verify the release exists and main reads `X.Y.(Z+1)-dev`. | The green rows are the point as much as the red ones: the machinery must be safe to work on, so every legitimate non-ceremony is a green `NOTICE` no-op — never a red run on main per infra PR ([lib/decide.sh](lib/decide.sh#L6-L12)). The label is hand-set intent and automation never guesses; the version transition is the interlock, and label-without-transition (row 4) and transition-without-label (row 5) both refuse (#1 constraint 8). ## The guards Four composite actions run in every consumer's CI (and in this repo's own). Shared shape: version-keyed where the tree's state matters, loud where it fails, and **a file of its own so a test can drive it**. The full war stories are in the scripts' header comments — authoritative and longer than this; what follows is the operator's cut. ### changelog-armed — main never sits disarmed **The rule** ([actions/changelog-armed/changelog-armed.sh](actions/changelog-armed/changelog-armed.sh)), keyed on the tree's shape, then its version. In **fragment mode** — `changelog.d/` exists, the arming property moved onto the directory (#112 D7): - always → the marker `changelog.d/README.md` must exist (what keeps the directory tracked when it holds no fragments), no `## Unreleased` section may survive in `CHANGELOG.md` (a second anchor with no owner), and every fragment must be publishable on its own — named `.md` or `-.md`, no `## ` heading, at least one bullet, no `### ` heading without an entry. A malformed fragment fails the PR that wrote it, not the release that consumes it (#112 D9). - `-dev` tree → nothing more. The directory **is** the arming: the next PR's entry is a new file, and a new file always has somewhere to land. - bare tree (the ceremony PR and its merge) → every fragment must be consumed, and the top section must be the stamped, publishable section for exactly that version. Fragment mode has no re-armed shape — there is nothing left to re-arm. In **legacy mode** — no `changelog.d/` — the version-keyed rules stand verbatim; both shapes stay supported so a consumer adopts fragments on a pin bump, on its own schedule (#112 D8): - `-dev` tree → the top section **must** be `## Unreleased`. - bare tree (the ceremony PR and its merge) → the top section may be `## Unreleased` (re-armed) *or* the stamped section for exactly that version — **and** that version's section must exist, carry at least one `-` or `*` entry, and have no `### ` heading without an entry before the next heading or section end. A heading is not an entry. These publication rules do not apply to `Unreleased`: the empty three-heading template is deliberately valid there (the half-ceremony refusal, rig#67: version bumped, stamp missing — asserted through the very extractor the publisher uses, so the two cannot disagree about what a section is). **The incident**: box#108 / rig#66 — the silent mislanding described [above](#what-a-release-is). Fragment mode retires the incident's mechanism outright; legacy mode guards it. **Red means** a PR entry has nowhere safe to land — a missing marker, a surviving `## Unreleased`, a malformed fragment — or a stamped version would publish no entries, a dangling grouped heading, or fewer fragments than it consumed; the message names the fix in every case. **Do not "simplify" this to "always require `## Unreleased`".** The unconditional form is false by construction on the ceremony PR's own tree — it makes every release unshippable — and rig#44 and cast#108 both had to revert exactly that ([the script's header](actions/changelog-armed/changelog-armed.sh#L8-L16)). The version-keyed form is what rig and cast get back by adopting this repo. One consequence worth knowing before it happens, legacy mode only: a ceremony PR that stamps and forgets to re-arm still passes this guard — a bare tree is allowed to be stamped. It goes red **the moment the automatic `-dev` bump lands on main**. The guard does not block the release; it refuses to let main *sit* disarmed, which is the window a late PR falls into. Fragment mode has no such window: with no re-arm step there is nothing to forget. ### changelog-assembled — the stamp is exactly the fragments **The rule** ([actions/changelog-assembled/changelog-assembled.sh](actions/changelog-assembled/changelog-assembled.sh)): on a release PR in fragment mode, the stamped `## X.Y.Z` section must be **byte-for-byte** what the fragments it consumed assemble to. The guard reads the fragments as of the merge base (they are gone from HEAD — that is the point of the ceremony), replays `changelog-assemble --check` over that set, and diffs the result against HEAD's section body. Every tree it does not apply to — a `-dev` tree, legacy mode, no consumed fragments — passes with a green `NOTICE`, so a non-ceremony PR is never red here. **The failure it catches** (#116): assembly is a hand-run step by design — the section must land in the PR's diff where the panel reads it (#112 D12) — and a mis-run hand step leaves no trace. Drop one fragment from the deletion and its entry is simply absent from the release: armed is green, monotonic is green, and the publisher happily publishes the shortened section. Hand-edit one word of the assembled prose and the published history quietly stops being what the authors wrote. The replay is what makes a hand-run step safe. **This guard needs history** — same stance as the monotonic guard: `fetch-depth: 0`, and in CI an unresolvable base is a hard failure, not a skip. ### changelog-monotonic — shipped headings are append-only **The rule** ([actions/changelog-monotonic/changelog-monotonic.sh](actions/changelog-monotonic/changelog-monotonic.sh#L4-L7)): the set of `## X.Y.Z` headings on your branch must be a **superset** of the set at the merge base, and no heading may appear twice on HEAD. The rule needs no tuning because release headings are append-only by doctrine: the ceremony adds one and nothing ever legitimately removes one — so superset has no exception to carve. The ceremony's own stamp passes by construction: the assembler writes a new `## X.Y.Z — DATE` heading and removes none. Fragment mode changes nothing here (#112 D10): fragments add no `## ` heading, and `Unreleased` was never in the guard's set — it is not a version heading; it is [changelog-armed](#changelog-armed--main-never-sits-disarmed)'s business — which is why a repo's adoption PR can delete it and stay green. **The incidents**: box#122 (caught in review of box#118) — an author adding an entry under `## Unreleased` **replaced** the heading below it instead of inserting above it; git merges that cleanly, and the shipped section's body is silently absorbed into `## Unreleased`. And box#118 itself — a bad rebase *duplicated* a shipped heading, which containment is blind to, which is why uniqueness-on-HEAD is a separate assert ([the script](actions/changelog-monotonic/changelog-monotonic.sh#L96-L116)). **Red means** a shipped section was deleted (put the heading back and insert **above** it) or duplicated (collapse to one heading; the failure message walks through both fixes with the diff to run). **This guard needs history**: the consumer's checkout must use `fetch-depth: 0`, and in CI an unresolvable base is a hard failure, not a skip — a guard that can quietly stop guarding is the failure shape this family of checks exists to refuse ([strict mode](actions/changelog-monotonic/changelog-monotonic.sh#L60-L79)). ### drill-recorded — a release carries its evidence **The rule** ([actions/drill-recorded/drill-recorded.sh](actions/drill-recorded/drill-recorded.sh#L23-L48)), keyed on the tree's version: a `-dev` tree passes with nothing to assert (a development tree ships nothing); a bare tree — the ceremony PR and its merge — must carry `drills/.md` with at least one non-whitespace character. One file per version, so `0.9.0.md` and `0.9.0-rc1.md` are simply different files and prefix confusion is unrepresentable (#1 constraint 7). **The incident**: box's CONTRIBUTING said since box#96 that the release ritual must be run and recorded. No release ever did it — box#95, box#114 and box#148 all shipped as a version bump plus a changelog stamp, because the gate was a sentence in a document and the only thing standing on it was a reviewer remembering to ask. The rule moved into CI, where it fires whether or not anyone is paying attention. **Red means** the release is asserting a ritual it left no evidence of. **The fix is to run the drill** and record it — or to waive it *in writing* at the same path: the guard demands a **record, not a passing result** ([below](#the-drill-doctrine)). ## The drill doctrine **Evidence, not success.** The guard asserts a record exists — a failed drill honestly written down satisfies it, and so does a maintainer waiver that says plainly the drill was waived and why. What it refuses is silence: a skip must cost a deliberate, reviewable file in the diff, which is precisely what box's three silent skips never produced. CI cannot run a consumer's drill (box's wants real hardware and the better part of an hour); it can only refuse a release that never ran one. **Each repo defines what its drill *means*** — the gate only reads the record. box asserts the **isolation contract**; rig asserts **convergence** (a machine reaches its role, idempotently); cast asserts **promotion** (A→B reproduces, the diff is idempotent); ceremony's own drill is a **door rehearsal** — both doors exercised end-to-end on a disposable repo (#11 names the six probes); incubator's is TBD in heavy-duty/incubator. Each repo states its meaning in its own `drills/README.md`. Three different exercises sharing a substrate is why the records are per-repo — they are not phases of one script. **Drills exercise candidate refs, not released artifacts.** A ref is a static identifier that exists as soon as the release branch does, so no repo has to be released — or drilled — before another can be drilled: what looks like a box↔rig recursion at runtime dissolves into two independent tests against one fixed pair of refs. And drilling the candidate *is* drilling the release: a ceremony PR's diff is the stamps and nothing else, so no executable byte differs between the tree that was drilled and the tree that ships. **A cross-repo release set shares one run ID.** Each repo records its own legs in its own `drills/X.Y.Z.md`, citing that run ID and the sibling SHAs, so the records reconcile afterwards — but the guard only ever reads the repo it runs in. If a defect shows up only in the combination: patch, re-drill, re-record. The set converges; it is not required to be right in one pass. ## Troubleshooting red main Every refusal the release flow can emit, verbatim, with cause and remedy. The catalog is generated from the sources, not paraphrased — regenerate it with: ```sh grep -n -A2 'refuse \|>&2' lib/decide.sh lib/facts.sh .github/workflows/release.yml ``` `$VER`-style variables appear as the run interpolates them. ### The decision refused ([lib/decide.sh](lib/decide.sh)) > the version '$VER' is bare, unchanged by this PR, and never released — the label says ship but this PR did not mint the version. Refusing to guess — creating nothing. > (If this PR was mislabeled, drop the label; if it was meant to release, it forgot the bump. A first release whose version never carried -dev ships by the tag door — the known first-release edge.) Row 4 ([L129–L133](lib/decide.sh#L129-L133)). The message is the remedy: drop the label, or re-do the ceremony with the bump, or take the tag door. > the version transitioned ('$BASE_VER' -> '$VER') but no merged, release-labeled PR is behind this commit — a release is a labeled ceremony PR, not a bare push — creating nothing. Row 5 ([L147–L149](lib/decide.sh#L147-L149)). Someone pushed or merged a version transition without the `release` label. Label a proper ceremony PR, or — if the tree is genuinely the release — publish by the tag door. > VER is empty — the caller failed to establish the version at the pushed head. Refusing to decide — creating nothing. > BASE_VER is empty — the caller failed to establish the version at the base. Refusing to decide — creating nothing. > RELEASED='${RELEASED}' — expected yes, no, or empty. Refusing to decide — creating nothing. > LABELED='${LABELED}' — expected yes, no, or empty. Refusing to decide — creating nothing. > the version '$VER' is bare and unchanged, but RELEASED is empty — this state is decided by whether '$VER' is already released, and the caller did not establish that fact. Refusing to guess — creating nothing. > the version transitioned ('$BASE_VER' -> '$VER') but LABELED is empty — a transition ships only behind a merged, release-labeled PR, and the caller did not establish that fact. Refusing to guess — creating nothing. The fact-gathering guards ([L92–L105](lib/decide.sh#L92-L105), [L135](lib/decide.sh#L135), [L151](lib/decide.sh#L151)): a missing fact must never fall through to "no". These indicate a bug upstream in [lib/facts.sh](lib/facts.sh) or the workflow plumbing, not an operator mistake — read the run's `facts:` stderr line and file what you find. ### The facts could not be established ([lib/facts.sh](lib/facts.sh), [lib/version.sh](lib/version.sh)) > facts: unknown VERSION_SOURCE '$VERSION_SOURCE' — expected file or package-json [L37](lib/facts.sh#L37): the caller's `version-source:` input is neither `file` nor `package-json`. Fix the caller. > version_read: $path: no such file > version_read: $path is empty > version_read: $path: no version field > version_read: node is required for version-source: package-json [lib/version.sh](lib/version.sh#L16-L66): the tree's version source is missing, empty, or unreadable. A wrong release is worse than a missing one, so an unreadable state is never an empty print — restore the `VERSION` file (or `package.json` version field) on main. ### The merge door refused ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L136-L300)) > CHANGELOG.md has no '## $VER' section at the merge commit — the ceremony PR must stamp it; refusing to publish an empty release [L202–L205](.github/workflows/release.yml#L202-L205): the ceremony merged without its stamp (a state the [armed guard](#changelog-armed--main-never-sits-disarmed) already refuses on the PR — red main here means it was overridden). Stamp the section on main, then publish by the tag door. > tag '$VER' already exists — this release already happened, or a manual tag won the race; refusing to re-release, creating nothing. > release '$VER' already exists — refusing to re-release, creating nothing. [L207–L222](.github/workflows/release.yml#L207-L222), the nothing-exists assert — what makes a re-run of a completed ceremony refuse instead of clobber, and what catches a manual tag racing the merge. If the release truly exists, there is nothing to do: this red is the system declining to do the thing twice. If the tag exists but the release does not (a manual tag won the race, or [a failed artifact hook](docs/CONSUMERS.md#the-artifact-hook)), recover by the tag door: delete and re-push the tag, or `gh release create` by hand from a fixed tree. > direct push refused (branch protection?) — opening the bump PR instead [L292–L300](.github/workflows/release.yml#L292-L300) — loud, but not a refusal: the post-release `-dev` bump could not push directly, so the run opened a `release`-labeled bump PR itself. Your move: merge it promptly — until it lands, main is sitting bare, where a dev install [impersonates the release](.github/workflows/release.yml#L291) and the [armed guard's window](#changelog-armed--main-never-sits-disarmed) stays open. ### The tag door refused ([release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L302-L369)) > tag '$GITHUB_REF_NAME' does not match the tree's version '$ver' — creating nothing. > A release is a PR, then a tag: the release PR bumps the version and stamps the changelog; the tag goes on its MERGE commit. Delete this tag and re-tag the right commit. [L333–L337](.github/workflows/release.yml#L333-L337). The message is the remedy. > CHANGELOG.md has no '## $VER' section — run changelog-assemble in the release PR before tagging; refusing to publish an empty release [L346–L349](.github/workflows/release.yml#L346-L349). The tagged tree was never stamped. Assemble the section ([docs/CONSUMERS.md](docs/CONSUMERS.md#assembling-a-release-section)), then delete and re-push the tag. ### Red main that is not the release workflow Consumer CI runs its guard steps on pushes to main too (this repo's [ci.yml](.github/workflows/ci.yml) does the same). The one guard red an operator will actually meet on main is **changelog-armed after a re-arm was forgotten — legacy mode only**: the ceremony stamped without putting `## Unreleased` back, the release's own `-dev` bump landed, and the guard now says (first line): > changelog-armed: the version is '$ver' (a development tree) but the top > section of $changelog is: … The fix is a one-line PR: add an empty `## Unreleased` above the stamped section. The full message carries the same instruction. Fragment mode has no re-arm to forget, so it has no equivalent red on main — its refusals (a missing marker, a surviving `## Unreleased`, a malformed or unconsumed fragment) all fire on the PR that caused them, where the author is still holding it. ## Design lineage The ceremony converged across box#83 → box#96, rig#32 → rig#47, and cast#96 → cast#111; this repo is those three implementations folded into one (the drift that motivated it is measured in [#1](https://github.com/heavy-duty/ceremony/issues/1)). The load-bearing constraints — each bought with an incident, none of them safe to "simplify" away — are listed in [#1](https://github.com/heavy-duty/ceremony/issues/1) and carried, with their war stories, in the headers of the scripts they bind: [release.yml](.github/workflows/release.yml#L1-L109), [lib/decide.sh](lib/decide.sh#L1-L74), [lib/facts.sh](lib/facts.sh#L1-L24), and the four [guard scripts](actions/). The comments are the documentation of record; this README is their operator-facing cut.