release

First confirm the distribution artifact actually changed since the last release baseline, then decide the version bump (semver by default), update version and changelog via a pull request, publish according to the distribution form, and verify completion from the target's state. Production releases require explicit approval beforehand.

Validation distribution publishes to staging environments or as clearly-marked development versions (e.g., -dev suffixes) and may proceed automatically. Production distribution publishes to all users and must stop for explicit approval, since rollback cannot undo users having seen a broken state.

Verify completion by querying the distribution target's state, such as registry version listings, deployed revision identifiers, or store review status, rather than trusting log output. Set a wait limit, poll with at least 5-second intervals, and treat timeouts as undetermined rather than success or failure.

Skip the release when the merged changes produce no diff in the distributed artifact, or when the diff contains only version metadata and documentation. Record the skip and its justification in the completion report so it is distinguishable from a forgotten release.

When merging triggers deployment automatically, approval must happen before the merge rather than before publication, and the release work becomes pre-merge confirmation plus post-merge verification and recording. Batched releases require batching the merges themselves or triggering from tags or separate branches.