stable-release-analyze

name: stable-release-analyze description: >- Analyzes Ansible collection stable branches to determine pending releases and calculate appropriate SemVer versions. Checks for unreleased commits, analyzes changelog fragments, and recommends next version. Use when asked to check which collections need releases or what version to release. user-invocable: false

Skill: stable-release-analyze

Purpose

Analyze Ansible collection stable branches for pending releases. This skill:

• Detects all stable-X branches
• Counts unreleased commits since last tag
• Analyzes changelog fragments to determine SemVer impact (MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH)
• Calculates the next appropriate version number
• Generates release recommendations

When to Invoke

TRIGGER when:

• A user asks to analyze pending releases
• A user asks "which collections need releases?"
• A user asks "what version should I release?"
• Beginning a release workflow (before release-prep)
• Planning release schedules

DO NOT TRIGGER when:

• Actually performing a release (use release-prep skill instead)
• Reviewing a PR (use pr-review skill instead)
• Running tests (use run-tests skill instead)

Inputs

• collection (optional): collection name (e.g., amazon.aws) or path. Defaults to current directory.
• --all (optional): analyze all collections in ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• PyYAML library (auto-installed in virtual environment)
• Git repository with configured upstream remote
• Stable branches following stable-X naming convention

Virtual Environment Management

CRITICAL: This skill ALWAYS creates and uses a virtual environment to ensure:

• ✅ Consistent dependency versions (PyYAML)
• ✅ No global package pollution
• ✅ Cross-platform compatibility
• ✅ Isolation from system Python

The virtual environment is automatically created in the skill directory and reused across invocations.

Release Analysis Steps

Step 1 — Setup virtual environment and install dependencies

ALWAYS run this first to ensure PyYAML is available:

cd SKILL_DIR && \
python3 -m venv .venv 2>/dev/null || true && \
source .venv/bin/activate && \
if command -v uv &> /dev/null; then
  uv pip install pyyaml
else
  pip install --quiet --upgrade pip && pip install --quiet pyyaml
fi

Replace SKILL_DIR with the directory containing this skill's scripts folder.

Verification: Confirm Python packages are installed:

source .venv/bin/activate && python3 -c "import yaml; print('PyYAML OK')"

Step 2 — Determine collection path

If collection name provided (e.g., amazon.aws):

NAMESPACE=$(echo "COLLECTION" | cut -d. -f1)
NAME=$(echo "COLLECTION" | cut -d. -f2)
COLLECTION_PATH="${ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH:-$HOME/dev/collections/ansible_collections}/$NAMESPACE/$NAME"

If in collection directory:

COLLECTION_PATH=$(pwd)
# Verify it's a collection
[ -f "galaxy.yml" ] || { echo "Error: Not an Ansible collection"; exit 2; }

Step 3 — Run analysis script

Execute the Python analysis script with venv activated:

cd SKILL_DIR && \
source .venv/bin/activate && \
./scripts/analyze-collection.py COLLECTION_PATH

The script will:

1. Read galaxy.yml to extract collection metadata
2. Fetch and sync with upstream remote
3. Detect all stable-X branches
4. For each stable branch:
   • Checkout and sync
   • Find last release tag
   • Count commits since tag
   • Analyze changelog fragments in changelogs/fragments/
   • Determine SemVer impact (MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH)
   • Calculate next version number
5. Generate summary report

Step 4 — Interpret results

The script outputs color-coded results:

✅ Green: RELEASE NEEDED

✅ stable-1: 1.0.0 → 1.0.1 (PATCH)
   Commits: 14, Fragments: 1
   20260122-devopsguru-notification_channel.yml

Action: Proceed with /release-prep --version 1.0.1 --branch stable-1

✓ Blue: UP TO DATE

✓ stable-3: Up to date (3.5.0)

Action: No release needed

⚠️ Yellow: COMMITS WITHOUT FRAGMENTS

⚠️ stable-6: 8 commits but no changelog fragments

Action: Add changelog fragments before releasing

❌ Red: ERROR

❌ stable-5: Failed to checkout branch

Action: Investigate git/branch issues

Step 5 — Analyze all collections (optional)

If --all flag provided, iterate through collections:

cd SKILL_DIR && source .venv/bin/activate

for NAMESPACE_DIR in ${ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH}/*/*; do
  if [ -f "$NAMESPACE_DIR/galaxy.yml" ]; then
    COLLECTION=$(basename $(dirname $NAMESPACE_DIR)).$(basename $NAMESPACE_DIR)
    echo "Analyzing $COLLECTION..."
    ./scripts/analyze-collection.py "$NAMESPACE_DIR"
  fi
done

SemVer Calculation Rules

Based on Ansible changelog fragment types:

Rule: The highest impact across all fragments determines the bump.

Output Example

Collection: amazon.ai
Current version: 1.0.0

Stable branches found: 1

Checking stable-1...
✅ stable-1: 1.0.0 → 1.0.1 (PATCH)
   Commits: 14, Fragments: 1
   20260122-devopsguru-notification_channel.yml: bugfixes (impact: PATCH)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Summary: 1 release(s) needed

Configuration

Optional environment variables (read from ~/.ansible-release.conf if present):

export ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH="~/dev/collections/ansible_collections"
export UPSTREAM_ORG="ansible-collections"

# Remote name for canonical repository (default: "upstream")
# Set to "origin" if you use different remote naming convention
export REMOTE_UPSTREAM="upstream"

Note on remote naming: This skill assumes the standard fork-and-pull workflow where:

• upstream = canonical repository (e.g., ansible-collections/amazon.aws)
• origin = your fork

If you use a different convention (e.g., origin for canonical, your fork as a different remote), set REMOTE_UPSTREAM="origin".

Troubleshooting

"PyYAML is required but not installed"

The venv setup should prevent this, but if it occurs:

cd SKILL_DIR && source .venv/bin/activate && pip install pyyaml

"Remote 'upstream' not found"

cd COLLECTION_PATH
git remote add upstream https://github.com/ansible-collections/COLLECTION.git
git fetch upstream --tags

"No stable branches found"

Verify the collection uses stable-X branch naming:

git branch -a | grep stable

"Cannot determine collection path"

Ensure you're either:

1. In a collection directory with galaxy.yml, OR
2. Providing a valid collection name like amazon.aws

Script Files

This skill includes the following Python scripts in scripts/:

• analyze-collection.py - Main analysis script (entry point)
• calculate-version.py - SemVer calculation logic
• check-branch.py - Branch analysis logic
• setup-collection-repo.py - Repository setup and cloning

All scripts include built-in dependency checks with helpful error messages.

Integration

This skill integrates with:

• release-prep - Prepares release after analysis determines version
• release - Full release orchestrator (uses this for analysis step)

Exit Codes

• 0: Analysis complete, results displayed
• 1: Analysis failed (git errors, missing dependencies)
• 2: Invalid collection or configuration

Implementation Notes

• Always activate venv before running scripts
• Use uv pip install for speed when available (fallback to pip)
• Scripts handle git operations internally
• Color output uses ANSI codes (disable with NO_COLOR=1)
• Safe to run multiple times (read-only operations)