Deployment Skill (Agent Sessions)

This skill is an agent-facing entrypoint that avoids duplicating the deployment runbook.

Canonical Sources (Single Source of Truth)

• Runbook: docs/deployment.md
• Unified tool: tools/release/deploy (see tools/release/deploy --help)
• Recommended pre-release QA checklist: docs/release/pre-release-qa.md

If anything here disagrees with the runbook, follow docs/deployment.md.

Workspace Policy (Hard Rule)

• Always run deployment from the user's current local repository checkout.
• Do not clone to temporary directories and do not switch to alternate worktrees as a deployment workaround.
• If the local worktree is dirty, stop and tell the user to clean the tree first (commit, stash, or discard), then continue in the same local repo.

QA Gate (Mandatory — Run Automatically Before Deploy)

• Always run QA automatically before any bump/release/verify step, unless the user explicitly says to skip it (e.g. "skip QA", "no QA").
• Do not ask whether to run QA — just run it.
• QA execution order:

1. Scope — git log --oneline --decorate -n 30 and git diff --name-only <LAST_TAG>..HEAD; identify high-risk areas.
2. Build — xcodebuild -project AgentSessions.xcodeproj -scheme AgentSessions -configuration Debug build
3. Full test suite — ./scripts/xcode_test_stable.sh
4. Targeted tests — run suites for touched high-risk areas (session parsing, usage tracking, onboarding, etc.)
5. Warnings sweep — flag any new actionable warnings in build output.
6. Manual smoke reminder — list the manual steps from docs/release/pre-release-qa.md §3–4 and ask the user to confirm GO/NO-GO after completing them.

• If automated gates fail → stop, report failure, do not proceed to bump/release.
• If user says "skip QA" or "no QA" → proceed without running, note it was skipped.

Before Starting (Ask the User)

1. Target version (X.Y for major/minor releases, X.Y.Z only for patch releases; never ship X.Y.0)
2. Any headline changes (new agents, major features) that must be reflected in docs/CHANGELOG.md
3. Whether this is a major release that requires onboarding updates
4. Public copy updates needed for README/GitHub Pages (major changes to highlight, renamed features, or outdated wording to fix)

Do NOT ask about QA status — QA always runs automatically as part of pre-deploy (see QA Gate above).

Public Copy Update (Required for All Releases)

Always update (every release)

• README.md download link: v{VERSION}/AgentSessions-{VERSION}.dmg and label Download Agent Sessions {VERSION} (DMG)
• README.md Option A download link (second occurrence under Install section)
• docs/index.html download button URL and label
• docs/index.html <meta name="description"> content (mention current version + key change)
• docs/index.html <meta property="og:description"> content
• docs/index.html <meta name="twitter:description"> content

Update for minor/major or user-visible feature releases

• README.md "What's New in X.Y" section: update heading to new version, rewrite TL;DR and Highlights to reflect this release's key changes (do not keep old version's copy)
• docs/index.html hero/feature copy if features were renamed or new agents added

Never add

• Versioned "What's New in X.Y" section to docs/index.html
• Detailed release notes to README or website (those live in docs/CHANGELOG.md)

After pushing

• Verify GitHub Pages reflects updated docs/index.html (check meta description and download button)

Pre-Deploy Checklist (Run Before Bump)

• ] docs/CHANGELOG.md [Unreleased] section has full, accurate content for this release (this is the only changelog — root CHANGELOG.md is a pointer to it, not a copy to sync)
• ] README.md download links updated to new version (both occurrences)
• ] README.md "What's New" section updated to new version heading + rewritten highlights
• ] docs/index.html download button URL and label updated
• ] docs/index.html meta description, og:description, twitter:description updated with version + key change
• ] All above files committed before running deploy bump (or bump will overwrite)

Sparkle Release Notes (Approval Gate)

• The release pipeline generates structured Sparkle notes from docs/CHANGELOG.md:
• Highlights or grouped current-release changes
• Other changes (summary)
• Reminder from the baseline release (for patch releases: A.B)
• During tools/release/deploy release <VERSION>, the deploy script prints a Sparkle release notes preview after build/sign/notarization and appcast validation.
• Treat the preview as user-facing product copy, not raw commit history:
• Lead with the headline change the user should care about.
• Do not include internal cleanup, validation fixes, or pre-release stabilization as “Bug Fixes” if users never received that broken behavior.
• If the preview is misleading, stop and edit docs/CHANGELOG.md before publishing.
• If SKIP_CONFIRM is not 1, it will pause and ask for approval before publishing (pushing appcast, updating Homebrew, updating the GitHub release).
• SKIP_CONFIRM=1 requires RELEASE_NOTES_REVIEWED=1 at the appcast publish gate; set it only after manually inspecting the Sparkle preview or for a rerun whose notes were already reviewed.
• The notes generator fails before publishing if notes contain obvious internal/process wording or put Bug Fixes ahead of a headline section.
• GitHub Release notes must use the same curated/linted notes as Sparkle, not raw commit history or raw changelog extraction.
• If the current release has no structured bullets, the generator adds a fallback highlight: Small bug fixes and stability improvements.

Standard Workflow (Use the Unified Tool)

bash
tools/release/deploy changelog [FROM_TAG]
tools/release/deploy bump [patch|minor|major]
git push origin main
tools/release/deploy release <VERSION> [--dry-run]
tools/release/deploy verify <VERSION>

Failure Handling

• First stop: docs/deployment.md → Troubleshooting, logs, and rollback guidance.
• Rollback only after reviewing logs: tools/release/rollback-release.sh <VERSION>.