OpenClaw Release CI

Use this with $release-openclaw-maintainer and $openclaw-testing when a release candidate needs full validation, install/update proof, live provider checks, or CI recovery.

Guardrails

• No version bump, tag, npm publish, GitHub release, or release promotion without explicit operator approval.
• After compaction, resume, or new steering, rewrite the effective goal and current phase from the latest explicit operator instruction. Do not merge old scope back into the active release.
• Hold the release scope once a release branch or Code SHA exists. Validate and ship that exact release; do not turn moving main into a second work queue.
• Record every active validation run as the immutable tuple Validation SHA + Tooling SHA + rerun group. Validation SHA maps to the Code SHA for product validation or the Release SHA for changelog-only validation; it is not a third release identity. A branch or temporary ref is context and transport.
• The candidate helper accepts an absent release tag or an existing lightweight or annotated tag resolving to the exact candidate SHA. A conflicting tag or failed remote lookup stops validation; never move a tag to recover.
• Freeze the candidate SHA/ref and Tooling SHA/ref once. Main lineage authorizes the initial Tooling SHA selection; it does not authorize replacing that tooling after main advances.
• Apply a release firebreak after the Code SHA is frozen. Admit only confirmed product defects, wrong or unverifiable package bytes, security defects, or failures that make publication impossible. Queue other findings for postpublish confidence or the next beta.
• Frozen CI children use the pinned Tooling SHA's Node shard planner and measured costs, while discovering and executing tests from the candidate checkout. Hosted full-release plans split measured rows above 12 minutes; preserve file coverage, worker limits, and complete timing generations. An indivisible over-budget owner must be split rather than increasing the release budget. After the child completes, closeout runs scripts/ci-shard-timings-refresh.mts for that exact run and commits generated costs; do not hand-edit measurements.
• Use trusted main workflow revisions as immutable dispatch sources. Do not adopt newer main code, repair unrelated main CI, wait for broad main health, or expand a release fix because the workflow source lives on main.
• Once publication binds the Tooling SHA to an exact protected lightweight release-publish/<12sha>-<provenance-run> tag, that live tag-to-SHA mapping remains authoritative when main advances. The suffix records tag-creation provenance; it is not the current parent run id. The regular release helpers mint or reuse that tag from --workflow-sha <tooling-sha>.
• Touch main only for an operator-requested change or the smallest critical main-owned blocker that prevents this release and cannot be handled from the release branch. If the required main landing policy is blocked by unrelated main failures, report that blocker and keep independent release work moving instead of healing broader main.
• Land tooling-only fixes on main with the release-fast-lane label added before the push (see Release tooling fast lane): openclaw/ci-gate then runs lint, types, guards, dependencies, docs, and the changed Node rows only. Land through the native scripts/pr path with its completed ClawSweeper review; findings are advisory for that label, so record any P1 the release owner declines to fix in the PR with its follow-up before landing.
• OPENCLAW_RELEASE_RUNNER_GROUP optionally routes validation parents and workers and the Release Publish parent plus its publish children to reserved capacity with unchanged labels; credentialed publish and approval jobs stay on default GitHub-hosted labels. Configure eligible runners and repo access first; unset preserves ordinary routing. Shared workers inherit the caller group; PR/main CI and unrelated scheduled work remain outside it.
• Validate provider secrets before dispatching expensive full release matrices.
• Check the nightly parent for the Code SHA before dispatching a fresh main validation; it seals per-child receipts that exact-target dispatches adopt when inputs match.
• Every selected validation lane must pass. Stable tags require stable/full evidence, soak, and blocking performance. Beta-profile evidence cannot qualify stable. No lane or soak waiver bypasses these requirements. All-group qualification requires all nine Linux/Windows/macOS Gateway install/upgrade combinations. Preserve first failures, identity, and complete evidence.
• Native macOS, Windows, Linux, and Android publication is independent of npm/ClawHub, GitHub finalization, and main closeout. Each platform retains its own signing, qualification, artifact, and updater requirements; report pending platforms accurately and repair native-only failures in parallel.
• Do not set GitHub secrets from unvalidated 1Password candidates. If a candidate returns 401/403, leave the existing secret alone and report the exact missing provider.
• Use $one-password for secret reads/writes: one persistent tmux session, targeted items only, no secret output.
• Watch one parent run plus compact child summaries. Avoid broad gh run view polling loops; REST quota is easy to burn.
• Fetch logs only for failed or currently-blocking jobs. If quota is low, stop polling and wait for reset.
• Treat live-provider flakes separately from code failures: prove key validity, provider HTTP status, retry evidence, and exact failing lane before editing code.
• A model-list response proves authentication, not billing or inference entitlement. Mandatory live providers must pass a real completion probe before release dispatch. Fix the credential first; do not add an alternate auth path merely to bypass a failed release credential.
• Full Release Validation separates exact-child dispatch, Release Decision, and Diagnostic Drain. With fail_fast=false, it makes zero child cancellation calls; Diagnostic Drain follows every selected child to terminal unless the collector itself is cancelled or loses GitHub API access. With fail_fast=true, Release Decision may cancel only the exact still-active child that owns a blocking failure.
• Same-parent continuation requires the original root to have been dispatched with fail_fast=false. The controller verifies that exact logged input before any rerun mutation.
• A parent that produced its own sealed candidate artifacts cannot be continued: GitHub reruns make those prior-attempt artifacts unavailable. Keep the candidate and Tooling SHAs frozen, supersede that parent, and start a fresh all-group Full Release Validation.
• After dispatch, one immutable execution-plan artifact records the original parent attempt, exact child tuples and titles, selected coverage, gates, and reuse identity. The same bytes are saved under an exact run-ID cache key. Decision, Drain, manifest writing, evidence validation, and final verification consume the artifact for their current attempt. A collector retry restores the cached plan, validates it, re-uploads its artifact, and adopts the same children; missing plan state is an orchestration failure, not permission to reconstruct the plan or redispatch.
• Reused evidence is not trusted merely because plan sealing found it. Release Decision repeats the sealed target SHA, evidence SHA, policy, changed paths, selected run, root run, source manifest, trusted tooling identity, and exact-child checks before returning passed.
• Parent retries select the newest Decision and Drain artifacts independently; both must bind the same immutable plan even when their source attempts differ.
• Child retries are part of the same immutable plan only when the child run ID, workflow path, ref, Tooling SHA, dispatch title, event, target, candidate, and validation inputs remain exact. Newer child attempts replace matching jobs; jobs absent from a newer attempt carry forward. A duplicate job identity, missing attempt, regressed attempt, or changed tuple fails closed. frv status and continue allow up to 60 seconds of read-only reconciliation when GitHub temporarily returns duplicate jobs in the newest retry attempt. The run tuple and attempt stay pinned; persistent duplicates and older-attempt conflicts remain errors.
• Use pnpm frv status|rerun --job|continue --failed|verify for attempt-aware recovery. The controller is stateless: the immutable execution plan, exact GitHub run attempts, Diagnostic Drain, and final manifest are the only authorities. It never writes a tag, package, registry entry, release candidate, or publication.
• Post-merge controller proof must use the reviewed landed SHA on protected main through the non-release FRV Proof Broker and FRV Proof Fixture. Dispatch the broker with the merged pull request number and exact landed commit. The broker must require that pull request's merge commit to match the landed commit, prove the landed commit is identical to or an ancestor of its trusted workflow SHA, and repeat authority, merge, and ancestry checks immediately before rerunning the fixture. Require the exact fixed no-op fixture run to advance from its intentional attempt-one failure to an attempt-two pass. The broker must emit its receipt without creating a release candidate, release artifact, publication, repository ref, replacement parent, or other workflow mutation. This is the hosted GitHub targeted-job rerun proof; focused controller tests own immutable plan eligibility, green-attempt preservation, same-parent collection, and strict-verifier invocation. Never use a real Full Release Validation run for this proof. See Full Release Validation.
• Use one release operator, one transition-only watcher, and at most one investigator for the current failed surface. Do not build audit-review-plan trees around a single workflow transition.
• For regular beta/stable releases, Code SHA may already contain final notes and serve as Release SHA. One successful fresh full parent may qualify both roles and their exact publication bytes. If notes change afterward, a later Release SHA may reuse product evidence only when its complete delta from Code SHA changes the selected CHANGELOG/YYYY.M.PATCH.md and optionally CHANGELOG.md and CHANGELOG/records/YYYY.M.PATCH.md, with no other paths, renames, or deletions; its changed bytes still need qualification.
• Extended-stable validates one exact branch tip; it does not reuse the regular Code-SHA/Release-SHA evidence model.
• In a sparse worktree or Testbox source sync, first confirm package.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, and every source path the selected check reads. If any are absent, that checkout cannot validate a release dependency or Docker lane: stop and use the repo remote changed gate or a full task worktree. When the inputs are present and a release fix changes package.json or pnpm-lock.yaml, rebuild only the task-owned disposable box with CI=true pnpm install --frozen-lockfile, then run an explicit require.resolve() probe before Docker or focused tests. The CI flag permits pnpm to recreate a prewarmed modules directory without an interactive confirmation. Do not weaken the lockfile or label sparse-checkout failures as product/Docker failures.
• If the candidate is rebased or its base SHA changes after warmup, stop the task-owned box and warm a fresh one before testing. Testbox source sync is relative to the warmed source tree; continuing can mix an old base file with a new candidate diff and produce false lockfile or Docker failures.
• Reused Testboxes are checked against their recorded source after their first successful run. Source-only edits may reuse the lease; base, dependency, wrapper, or Testbox workflow drift requires a fresh lease. Do not set OPENCLAW_TESTBOX_ALLOW_STALE=1 for release evidence.
• For a committed release candidate, warm the box with blacksmith testbox warmup ... --ref <candidate-branch-or-sha>. Do not rely on source sync to overlay committed branch changes onto the workflow's default ref.

Deferred CI recovery

Release validation does not pause CI or supporting workflows. The legacy OPENCLAW_RELEASE_PRIORITY_RUN variable is ignored by current workflow admission. Do not use pnpm frv prioritize --run for routine validation; it still cancels queued runs. Use pnpm frv prioritize --restore <record> to recover runs deferred by older workflow revisions and clear their variable. Keep the required publication proofs and soak gates intact.

Continuous release readiness

The 04:00 UTC nightly seals a direct-root manifest and per-child receipts for the exact main SHA. For a same-day cut, start the release train on main (version and changelog) before 04:00 UTC, then cut release/YYYY.M.PATCH at the nightly SHA so the Code SHA equals the validated SHA. Per-child adoption matches exact target SHA, role, and dispatch inputs minus dispatch_id: productPerformance is adopted because its inputs are context-free and match. A stable candidate dispatched with --target-ref release/YYYY.M.PATCH resolves coveragePolicy=npm-stable-v1 and ci_release_scope=npm-stable, versus full scope on main. normalCi, plugin prerelease, and release checks are re-dispatched because their inputs add target_context_ref, plugin prerelease and release checks add allow_frozen_target_scenario_omissions=true, and scope differs. Whole-parent adoption requires byte-identical manifest validationInputs, including validationPurpose, publicationSelectionJson, targetContextRef, targetVersion, allowUnreleasedChangelog, and coveragePolicy; a main-qualification nightly is never adopted wholesale by a publish-purpose stable candidate. Purpose/context-crossing adoption is a verifier policy follow-up.

Release tooling fast lane

Add the release-fast-lane label to a pull request before the push that should use it; PR CI reads labels from the triggering event, and label events do not start CI. For an already-pushed head, gh pr ready --undo then gh pr ready re-triggers PR CI with the current labels. The label narrows openclaw/ci-gate only on a canonical pull request whose changed paths are all release tooling: .github/workflows/**, scripts/**, test/scripts/**, .agents/skills/release-*/**, docs/reference/RELEASING.md, or independently checked documentation. Admitted runs keep security-fast, check-shard (lint, prod/test types, guards, dependencies, npm lock), check-docs when docs changed, and the changed Node rows; the compact packing-policy full-plan proof for planner edits is relaxed to those rows. Contracts, baseline ratchets, bundled protocol, Bun launcher, additional checks, build artifacts (unless a changed row needs dist), Control UI, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, i18n, and skills lanes are skipped and listed under "Release fast lane" in the preflight step summary. A declined label (out-of-scope path, global Node input, fork, push, dispatch, docs-only) logs a warning and leaves ordinary selection untouched. The gate stays complete: every selected lane must pass, and hourly full main CI covers the merged result. The label narrows only the CI gate: fork heads are declined, and the native scripts/pr landing path with its completed ClawSweeper review is unchanged. ClawSweeper findings are advisory for labelled PRs: a P1 that the release owner decides not to fix in the PR is recorded there with its follow-up before landing.

Run identity and retry budget

Record Validation SHA, Tooling SHA/ref, target context ref, parent run id, attempt, and phase before watching or recovering Full Release Validation. Keep Code SHA and Release SHA as lifecycle roles in the ledger; they may name the same commit. Record the immutable Release Publish parent receipt separately from the tag's recorded source.

For the core and plugin npm mutations enforced by this foundation, re-read the exact protected lightweight tag and revalidate the exact parent run tuple immediately before each publish or dist-tag mutation. Reject a missing, moved, annotated, or wrong-SHA tag; a repository, workflow, run id, attempt, tooling identity, or parent-state mismatch; and any same-name branch. Never refresh either identity from current main. Treat other privileged writers as blocked until their dependent enforcement changes land.

• Conceptual phases map to current inputs as follows:

  • beta-publish: release_profile=beta, run_release_soak=false
  • postpublish-confidence: published package inputs with run_release_soak=true or explicit focused groups
  • stable-publish: release_profile=stable or full, with soak and blocking performance

• An all run without soak for an actual beta package on its matching canonical release branch or beta tag records coveragePolicy=npm-beta-v1. It keeps Linux/macOS/Windows Node, Control UI, plugin, package, install/update, Linux/Windows/macOS cross-OS, QA parity, runtime-pair/restart, and tool coverage. All selected tests gate npm/ClawHub. Native app CI, performance, and published-package Telegram are deferred to confidence. Beta all without soak also defers Package Acceptance Telegram, including beta-profile checks of main or alpha. Record deferred checks as not run, never passed. Stable/full, soak, and focused groups retain their coverage; selected children still require terminal evidence. An absent coverage policy retains historical full behavior.

• Keep at most one active parent for the same Validation SHA + Tooling SHA + rerun group + release profile + effective soak coverage. Stable/full always include soak. Distinct coverage profiles can run independently; concurrency does not cancel an older exact child automatically.

• Parent cancellation or timeout leaves adopted identity-checked children running. The operator must cancel an exact child explicitly when it is no longer useful. Do not infer a child identity from branch, title prefix, or latest-run order.

• Recover one failed surface with one diagnosis, one fix when needed, and one narrow retry. Then reassess the release decision. Do not automatically dispatch rerun_group=all.

• Never automatically rerun a failed or timed out test job. New dispatches reject known_flaky_jobs_json; diagnose the original failure and fix its owner before explicit operator recovery.

• For a supported parent, pnpm frv rerun --run <parent-run-id> --job "<child-key>:<exact job name>" reruns one executed terminal job using its accepted Actions job ID. Get the child key and exact name from frv status --json. GitHub also reruns dependent jobs. The controller waits only for that child before sending the request; it does not retry unrelated failures.

• pnpm frv continue --failed --run <parent-run-id> reruns each failed child as soon as it is terminal, even while the parent or siblings remain active. It adopts active attempts and preserves green children. Once every required child is green and the original parent finishes, it reruns the parent once to restore the same immutable plan and seal the updated all-group manifest. An early retry can invalidate the original Decision/Drain pairing; the final reseal and strict verification own completion.

Preflight

Before full matrix dispatch, run both pnpm ui:i18n:check and pnpm native:i18n:check against the frozen trusted target in approved isolation. Bind both results to that exact SHA. Report generated-locale drift as a warning and continue dispatch; source changes and the serialized locale-refresh workflows can temporarily leave generated output behind. Do not require regeneration before starting validation. FRV's normal-CI child retains the strict control-ui-i18n and native-i18n jobs and reports their actual results in the run summary; a failed selected locale job blocks npm/ClawHub publication. PR-side checks and release-prep gates stay unchanged. Keep target execution outside the trusted dispatch helper—do not execute an arbitrary target checkout as helper code.

Before expensive full validation, also run pnpm ui:build on the same frozen trusted target with its frozen dependencies in approved isolation, outside the trusted dispatch helper. Record the target SHA with the successful production build, precompressed-asset verification, and startup/largest-asset budget results; any failure blocks fanout. Do not substitute a dev server or raise budgets to admit the target.

For local full E2E proof, prepare the frozen, dependency-ready proof checkout with private QA entries in the initial build:

OPENCLAW_BUILD_PRIVATE_QA=1 pnpm build

Then run the selected E2E command with its normal readiness checks enabled. scripts/lib/vitest-build-prerequisites.mts requests private QA entries; scripts/run-node.mts triggers another full build when they are absent. This preflight avoids rebuilding solely for missing_private_qa_dist. Keep the flag scoped to this task-owned proof checkout and command. Publication package and image bytes remain owned by the release workflows and their sealed artifacts.

Before full release validation:

node .agents/skills/release-openclaw-ci/scripts/verify-provider-secrets.mjs --required openai,anthropic,fireworks
gh api rate_limit --jq '.resources.core'
git status --short --branch
git rev-parse HEAD

1Password service-account values are the first source for release provider preflight. Inject those exact targeted keys first, then run the verifier; use ambient env only when it was already intentionally injected for this release. The script prints only provider status and HTTP class, never tokens. The Anthropic check performs a tiny message completion so exhausted or non-billable credentials fail before the expensive release matrix.

Before publication

For regular beta/stable protected publication, after evidence validation run pnpm release:publish-preflight with the intended tag, exact Full Release Validation run and attempt, npm dist-tag, plugin scope, and protected publication tooling ref. pnpm release:candidate invokes this check with its downloaded manifests; do not redownload them or replace the selected attempt. Use the report's exact dispatch command for the chosen publication route only after resolving every FAIL and owner-action WARN. Alpha uses its matching Tideclaw branch; extended-stable retains its separate owner workflows and is not admitted by this preflight.

Check the report before retrying a failed publication: preserve the verified openclaw_npm_resume_run_id for already-published core bytes, inspect matching draft/published release state, and identify exact orphaned plugin/ClawHub children before cancellation. Preflight is read-only and does not authorize publication, cancel children, or prove a repository secret from local credentials. Bootstrap candidates need a read-only npm whoami probe using the repository's actual NPM_TOKEN; follow the secret-isolated step in bootstrap token probe and retain its run URL. Do not rotate credentials as part of a diagnostic check.

Dispatch

After source admission, plugin compatibility readiness, and evidence reuse selection, dispatch source-only children alongside npm and Docker artifact producers. Candidate acquisition consumes raw npm bytes while qualification continues; candidate Plugin Prerelease and Release Checks start immediately after candidate verification without waiting for independent validation or Docker. Preserve the immutable execution plan and final artifact qualification.

Each selected validation child uploads an immutable full-release-child-evidence-<target-sha>-<role>-<run-id>-<attempt> receipt from trusted workflow tooling. The receipt retains normalized dispatch inputs, including candidate descriptors, and composes predecessor jobs across attempts. Its workloadConclusion excludes the running publisher. Collection failure loses reuse metadata without changing workload qualification. With reuse_evidence=true, dispatch checks at most 30 recent runs and five receipts per role within two minutes. It can adopt green children from failed, cancelled, or active parents for the exact target, inputs/defaults, and candidate descriptor bytes; unmatched roles dispatch fresh work. The current-parent adoption witness and immutable execution plan bind each selection. Collectors and final verification recheck the live child attempt and conclusion, main ancestry, exact inputs, artifact identity/digest/expiry, and successful trusted seal/upload steps. A newer attempt invalidates reuse; do not rerun an adopted child to repair a collector. Current-parent source/publication admission and the separate successful-parent changelog reuse path remain unchanged. Artifact producers retain their existing sealed receipts.

An early standalone product-performance run is optional beta confidence. If useful, start it against the frozen Code SHA in parallel with release work:

# Optional beta confidence; stable/full qualification requires blocking performance.
fail_on_regression=false
gh workflow run openclaw-performance.yml \
  --repo openclaw/openclaw \
  --ref main \
  -f target_ref=<code-sha> \
  -f profile=release \
  -f repeat=3 \
  -f deep_profile=false \
  -f live_openai_candidate=false \
  -f fail_on_regression="$fail_on_regression"

• Do not add a separate mandatory prepublish wait for this optional beta signal.
• Compare available Kova, gateway startup, and CLI startup metrics with earlier release evidence or clawgrit reports before publish/closeout.
• Record regressions in release evidence and investigate their product impact. Stable/full qualification requires blocking performance. Every selected performance child must succeed; failures cannot be waived.
• npm-beta-v1 defers the performance child. Every selected child still needs terminal evidence and must prove artifact-only publication.

Prefer an immutable trusted-main workflow revision, target the exact Code SHA:

• Keep trusted-workflow checks compatible with frozen release targets. If main adds a target-owned guard script or package command after the release branch cut, make the trusted workflow skip only when that target surface is absent. Repair the smallest trusted-workflow compatibility issue only when it blocks the release, then rerun validation. Do not port an unrelated runtime refactor, heal other main failures, or mutate the release candidate just to satisfy a newer main-only check.

TOOLING_SHA="<exact-main-ancestor-sha>"
PUBLICATION_SELECTION='{"route":"normal","npmDistTag":"latest","publishOpenclawNpm":true,"pluginPublishScope":"all-publishable","plugins":[]}'
node scripts/full-release-validation-at-sha.mjs \
  --sha <code-sha> \
  --target-ref release/YYYY.M.PATCH \
  --workflow-sha "$TOOLING_SHA" \
  -f validation_purpose=publish \
  -f publication_selection_json="$PUBLICATION_SELECTION"

Select npmDistTag=beta for beta publication and route=prepared only for an intended prepared-button consumer. The source-admission result does not qualify registry state or authorize publishing. Nonpublish investigations use explicit validation_purpose=diagnostic without publication selection; recurring main qualification uses main-qualification, and exact published-package confidence uses postpublish-confidence. Keep coverage/profile selection independent.

For regular release/* validation, never raw-dispatch the workflow without target_context_ref (the helper's --target-ref records it). Canonical release/* and extended-stable/* workflow refs remain supported routes, but their Telegram child must retain the exact parent workflow ref and SHA through OIDC and attestation. Trusted-workflow release-branch CI passes target_ref + release_candidate_ref; never release_gate there — it requires workflow head == target. (The PR-head ci.yml fallback below is a different dispatch and does use release_gate=true.)

The release branch may advance after the Code SHA is frozen. The helper accepts that frozen SHA only while it remains an ancestor of the canonical release branch and its package version is either the branch's final version or a matching beta prerelease. Alpha remains on the Tideclaw path with a matching alpha branch and exact alpha tag. Extended-stable branches and all tags require an exact package-version match. Always pass the previously recorded full Tooling SHA for release-branch runs. Never replace it with a fresh main lookup. The Tooling SHA must declare the current release-isolation contract; older workflow revisions fail closed.

For immutable workflow proof on a moving main, use pnpm ci:full-release --sha <code-sha> --target-ref release/YYYY.M.PATCH --workflow-sha <tooling-sha> -f validation_purpose=publish -f publication_selection_json="$PUBLICATION_SELECTION". Its canonical release-ci/* ref keeps evidence reuse enabled after proving the workflow commit is still on trusted main lineage. Pass -f reuse_evidence=false only when the operator intentionally needs a fresh full run.

If final notes were already committed before fresh full qualification, retain that Code SHA as Release SHA and use the same successful parent/attempt and its exact prepared bytes for candidate and publication checks. Required gates and final channel-specific SDK review still apply. Publishers consume the sealed acknowledgement; the candidate helper retains its explicit argument when needed.

Only if notes change after qualification, commit the selected release entry and any matching record/index updates, then optionally run the helper against the new Release SHA with reuse. That parent must report policy=split-changelog-release-v1, evidenceSha=<code-sha>, and the complete changedPaths: the selected CHANGELOG/YYYY.M.PATCH.md is required, with only CHANGELOG.md and CHANGELOG/records/YYYY.M.PATCH.md permitted alongside it. Entry/record additions or modifications are permitted; index changes must be modifications. Renames, deletions, other releases, and docs source edits require fresh product qualification. Historical root-only receipts retain changelog-only-release-v1. The split path should reuse the product matrix instead of dispatching child lanes. Npm preflight and package/install acceptance still run against the exact Release SHA and its new tarball bytes.

Current all-group FRV also owns read-only npm source/build/qualification and Docker preparation. Use its successful run as preflight_run_id; the candidate helper defaults to that run. Do not dispatch a second npm preflight unless recovering historical separate evidence. Regular final qualification records SDK reports for both beta and latest; review the acknowledgement for the actual publication channel. Prepared descriptors live in publicationArtifacts in the exact final manifest. Product evidence reuse never substitutes Code-SHA package or image bytes for the final Release SHA. For failed independent npm qualification, use pnpm frv continue --failed: failed npm jobs retry on their original run, successful preparation jobs and diagnostic children carry forward, and the parent verifies the resulting receipts. Failure alone is not a continuation rejection. Frozen workflows execute their original receipt logic; a local controller upgrade does not retrofit that logic, and final verification still owns the recovery result.

The SHA-pinned helper infers beta for matching beta release candidates and exact alpha tags, and stable for stable/correction versions, then passes the Validation SHA + Tooling SHA run identity. Canonical beta all without soak uses npm-beta-v1; main, alpha, and non-beta targets do not qualify for that policy. Run deferred native, performance, Telegram, broad live QA, and E2E as postpublish confidence with the exact published package and run_release_soak=true or explicit groups. Stable and full profiles force the release soak. Native artifact publication still requires its own build, signing, notarization, and promotion gates. Use a narrow rerun_group after focused fixes; never widen automatically. At seal time the parent records the SDK evidence digest from the qualified npm receipt and resolves per-package npm plans against the registry. The manifest's publishInputs supplies publisher/preflight defaults. SDK API changes still need the operator's acknowledgement; sealed evidence does not grant authority. Mutation owners recheck live publication authority, selectors, and immutable bytes.

Publication requirements

Publish with release_profile=from-validation to consume the sealed profile. Stable publication requires stable/full evidence, soak, and blocking performance. Every selected validation lane must succeed, including first-hop compatibility, Telegram, and Linux/Windows/macOS Gateway checks. No lane or soak waiver applies.

Publish children

Use the maintainer publication recovery guide for publication ordering and prepared/direct recovery.

• pnpm release:stable <version> (orchestrated stable release) dispatches the parent once, approves the parent's npm-release gate, prints child-approval commands only for older tooling without npm-publish and stale-child sweep commands when needed (it never mutates a child run). On any refusal it prints Next: with the exact recovery command.
• The parent's npm-release approval mints the attested openclaw-release-approval-v1-<parent run>-<attempt> receipt; bot-dispatched children verify it (scripts/release-approval-receipt.mjs verify) before their gates. The ClawHub OIDC child skips its clawhub-plugin-release gate on a verified receipt and instead waits for the parent's openclaw-clawhub-parent-authorization-v2-* receipt before publishing. npm children (Plugin NPM Release, openclaw-npm-release.yml) skip their npm-release approval job on the verified-receipt route and publish in npm-publish, with trusted publishers bound to that environment. Immediately before publication they wait for the parent attempt's receipt and require that attempt to remain in_progress. This is one human approval per release. npm-publish has no reviewers and admits only protected release-publish/<sha12>-<n> tags. Real manual/recovery npm dispatches must use such a tooling tag and still need their own npm-release approval job; the read-only OIDC preflight also uses npm-publish and requires that tag. Artifact-only preflights keep their existing refs and have no environment.
• Never approve ClawHub children (plugin-clawhub-release.yml, plugin-clawhub-new.yml) by hand. plugin-clawhub-release.yml needs no approval on the bot route (receipt-verified); the Artifact not found line for openclaw-clawhub-recovery-approval-<run>-1 is a non-fatal probe, and a late human approval fails at Revalidate trusted tooling identity with parent state completed/failure is not allowed by authorization route once the parent has died (2026.9.6: runs 35930335388/35930341394). If the parent died, cancel the children and re-dispatch the parent.
• Before every child dispatch the parent sweeps a failed earlier parent's waiting/queued children of the same release (ClawHub and core by the parent=<run>/<attempt> run title; plugin npm by the release SHA, only while no other publish parent is live): it rejects their gate, cancels, and waits up to 5 minutes for GitHub to report them cancelled (a waiting run takes ~2 minutes). A parent failure also cancels its own waiting npm children. Only legacy children without a parent identity in their title, or a live publisher job, still block with ; sweep those by hand. List runs by created for this release, reject their gate, cancel:

Extended-stable validation

Use one remote-only procedure for .33+ extended-stable validation. Keep these four identities separate:

• Validation SHA: exact 40-character candidate commit to validate.
• Tooling SHA: exact trusted-main commit whose workflows and helpers run.
• Context ref: canonical extended-stable/YYYY.M.33 branch containing the candidate.
• Workflow transport ref: immutable release-ci/<tooling-sha-prefix>-<unique-id> branch at the Tooling SHA.

GitHub workflow dispatch --ref accepts a branch or tag name, not a raw commit SHA. Never raw-dispatch this validation or hand-assemble its identity inputs. Use the checked helper exclusively:

VALIDATION_SHA="<exact-candidate-sha>"
TOOLING_SHA="<recorded-full-main-ancestor-sha>"
CONTEXT_REF="extended-stable/YYYY.M.33"
pnpm ci:full-release \
  --sha "$VALIDATION_SHA" \
  --target-ref "$CONTEXT_REF" \
  --workflow-sha "$TOOLING_SHA" \
  -f validation_purpose=publish \
  -f publication_selection_json='{"route":"extended-stable","npmDistTag":"extended-stable","publishOpenclawNpm":true,"pluginPublishScope":"all-publishable","plugins":[]}' \
  -f release_profile=stable \
  -f run_release_soak=true \
  -f fail_fast=false \
  -f rerun_group=all \
  -f reuse_evidence=false \
  -f dispatch_release_evidence=false

The helper verifies both SHAs, creates the transport ref with the equivalent of the following GitHub refs operation, and dispatches from that branch:

gh api --method POST repos/openclaw/openclaw/git/refs \
  -f ref="refs/heads/release-ci/${TOOLING_SHA:0:12}-<unique-id>" \
  -f sha="$TOOLING_SHA"

Do not run that operation separately. The helper also supplies ref=$VALIDATION_SHA, expected_sha=$VALIDATION_SHA, target_context_ref=$CONTEXT_REF, and this exact trusted identity:

{"fullRef":"refs/heads/main","ref":"main","sha":"<tooling-sha>"}

Outside this extended-stable procedure, a direct canonical-branch dispatch is valid only when that branch's own head is both the Validation SHA and the trusted workflow implementation to execute. It cannot use a different trusted-main Tooling SHA. Current extended-stable validation requires distinct trusted-main tooling, so it must use the immutable release-ci/* transport above. Direct canonical-branch and mutable-main dispatches are not valid alternatives for this procedure.

Accept only a complete rerun_group=all run with a supported exact-target manifest. Bind its workflow SHA separately from the candidate SHA; require the manifest target, package versions, saved run_attempt, and final tag to identify the same candidate. Reject narrow runs, untrusted tooling, mismatched targets, and earlier-attempt evidence.

Run the npm preflight separately from trusted main. Here tag is the exact candidate SHA; it is an npm-preflight input, not the workflow transport ref:

gh workflow run openclaw-npm-release.yml \
  --repo openclaw/openclaw \
  --ref main \
  -f tag="$VALIDATION_SHA" \
  -f preflight_only=true \
  -f npm_dist_tag=extended-stable \
  -f release_candidate_branch="$CONTEXT_REF"

This standalone run is a supplemental validation-only preflight. Do not pass its run ID as publication preflight_run_id: a main workflow head does not have the canonical candidate branch/SHA identity required by that publication input. Publication continues to use the Full Release Validation run's manifest-bound integrated npm artifact and exact run attempt.

Product failures need an approved backport. Frozen-target tooling failures need the smallest behavior-preserving repair. Provider, approval, runner, or log races keep the candidate unchanged. Record repairs and superseded runs; any branch change requires a new complete parent. Omit only an explicitly unsupported frozen-target scenario, never a required behavior or package.

Frozen-target test omissions

Use plugin_prerelease_node_exclude_patterns_json only for exact src/plugins/ test paths in the Plugin Prerelease Node lane. Use extension_test_exclude_patterns_json for exact extensions/ test paths in Plugin Prerelease extension shards. Normal CI does not own that sweep. Both default to []; there is no implicit Codex omission. Pass JSON arrays at initial dispatch, retain the justification and owning fix, and report omitted coverage as not run.

Preflight must discover every requested path in the selected frozen-target lane; nonexistent, out-of-lane, duplicate, basename, or glob inputs fail loudly. Trusted tooling applies exact exclusions to inline Vitest leaves while preserving candidate runtime preparation and restores original config bytes after the shard command. Do not substitute CLI --exclude or a new target-side environment variable: frozen inline projects may ignore them. Inputs remain in the immutable request, coverage/reuse identity, and final manifest; changing them requires a new request, never continuation.

Watch

Use the transition-only summary watcher instead of repeated raw polling:

node scripts/release-ci-summary.mjs <full-release-run-id> --watch

Do not start this watcher when the SHA-pinned helper is still the foreground owner. The helper reads the exact Release Decision artifact itself. On blocked_diagnostics_running, it exits nonzero immediately, keeps the temporary refs, and leaves Diagnostic Drain collecting the remaining terminal evidence. The watcher behaves the same way for separately dispatched parents: it reports the Release Decision blocker once and exits while the drain continues.

For a one-shot snapshot:

node scripts/release-ci-summary.mjs <full-release-run-id>

release-ci-summary accepts Full Release Validation parent runs only. Diverged release-branch logs: --first-parent plus a bounded count. Stop watchers before ending the turn or switching strategy.

For PR and child gates, read the exact workflow run, not the commit's check-run list: commits/<sha>/check-runs keeps entries from superseded or cancelled runs for the same head, so a stale cancelled or failure can mask a newer success. Resolve the newest CI run for the head (actions/runs?head_sha=<sha>) and read openclaw/ci-gate from that run's jobs before retrying or reporting.

Interpret state precisely:

• qualifying: no decisive blocker yet; selected children are still active.
• blocked_diagnostics_running: publication is blocked; Diagnostic Drain is still collecting independent failures. Diagnose now and use frv rerun or continue --failed when the failed child is terminal; final parent resealing still waits for complete evidence.
• passed: all required policy and exact-child evidence passed.
• blocked_complete: publication is blocked and all selected diagnostics are terminal.
• orchestration_error: GitHub API or collector failure prevented a verdict. This does not mean the wrong source was used. Recover the collector against the same exact children; never redispatch tests to repair collection.
• cancelled_with_children: the collector was cancelled while exact children remained active.

Read every selected lane's actual conclusion. passed requires all selected validation lanes to succeed; omitted coverage is not run, never passed.

The full-release-diagnostics-<run-id>-<attempt> artifact is the terminal failure and timing manifest. Use it after an early blocker instead of restarting all merely to discover what the still-running children found. The stable full-release-execution-plan-<run-id> artifact is the identity source within each collector attempt; retry attempts restore its immutable run-ID-cached bytes first.

Failure Triage

1. Confirm parent SHA and child run IDs.
2. List failed jobs only:

   gh run view <child-run-id> --repo openclaw/openclaw --json jobs \
     --jq '.jobs[] | select(.conclusion=="failure" or .conclusion=="timed_out" or .conclusion=="cancelled") | [.databaseId,.name,.conclusion,.url] | @tsv'
   

3. Fetch one failed job log. If rate-limited, note reset time and avoid more REST calls.
4. For secret-looking failures, validate a real completion from the same secret source before editing code. A successful model-list request is insufficient. Claude CLI subscription credentials are a separate native auth path; prove them in a clean-home CLI probe, never as a substitute for a required Anthropic API-key lane.
5. For live-cache failures, inspect whether it is missing/invalid key, empty text, provider refusal, timeout, or baseline miss. Do not weaken release gates without clear provider evidence.
6. Classify before editing:
   • confirmed product/code failure: fix the release branch, freeze a new Code SHA, and invalidate product evidence
   • harness, tooling, or source mismatch: keep the Code SHA, fix the smallest owning surface, and retry only the failed surface with the required Tooling SHA
   • infrastructure/credential failure: keep both SHAs, repair the external prerequisite, and retry only the failed surface
   • wrapper/monitor failure: keep the child and candidate identities; record the wrapper result separately from the child result
   • changelog/release-note failure: change only the selected release entry and permitted record/index paths under split-changelog-release-v1, keep Code SHA evidence, and repeat Release SHA proof
   • publish child/registry selector failure: keep Release SHA and resume the failed child; never rebuild an immutable version that already published
   • parent failed after core npm published (for example a stale beta dist-tag failing the completion verify): retain the successful original npm run and qualified bytes, repair the selector, and reconcile the exact failed parent's children before resuming the selected publication route. Direct finalization normally waits for npm and Docker verification; the prepared button also verifies ClawHub downloads. Do not manually un-draft a release to bypass those gates. Follow publication recovery for direct resume or a new prepared button run.
   • child stuck waiting, ClawHub Artifact not found, or parent failing ClawHub dispatch blocked by waiting run: see Publish children Only the first class changes the Code SHA. After one diagnosis/fix/narrow retry, reassess instead of starting another all-group cycle.

Evidence

Record:

• release lifecycle ledger: Code SHA, Release SHA, and Tooling SHA for regular releases; canonical branch, exact SHA, and immutable tag for extended-stable
• evidence-reuse policy, coverage policy, and complete changed-path set
• active full parent run URL, attempt, workflow SHA, and any superseded parent with the exact replacement reason
• selected child run IDs and conclusions: CI, Release Checks, Plugin Prerelease, NPM Telegram, Product Performance; record deferred confidence as not run
• all selected lane conclusions, including Linux/Windows/macOS cross-OS
• performance comparison result versus earlier releases when available
• targeted local proof commands
• provider-secret preflight result
• frozen-target compatibility repairs or omitted inapplicable scenarios, with their source PRs and invariant
• known gaps or unrelated failures

For lessons and recovery patterns, read references/release-ci-notes.md.