tendril-release - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: tendril-release description: Updates the used Ivy NuGet packages to the latest stable versions in a branch from development, builds/verifies, merges into development, creates a PR into main, merges it, merges main back to development, and triggers the GitHub Actions release workflow.

Tendril Release Automator

This skill automates the release preparation and deployment process for Ivy Tendril. It manages package updates, local branch integration, GitHub PR generation and merging, branch synchronization, and triggers the final release workflow.

Invocation

/tendril-release

What This Skill Does

Creates a release branch off development.
Updates Ivy NuGet packages to their latest stable version available on NuGet.
Builds the project to verify compilation and package compatibility.
Commits and merges the changes back into development.
Increments the patch version in Directory.Build.props (e.g. 1.0.35 -> 1.0.36).
Creates a Pull Request from development into main.
Merges the PR into main (if mergeable).
Synchronizes the branches by merging main back into development.
Triggers the GitHub release workflow (publish-tendril.yml) on main (or on a test branch like development with test-mode enabled).

Prerequisites

GitHub CLI (gh) must be installed and authenticated with PR and workflow write access.
PowerShell 7 (pwsh) must be installed on the system.

Step-by-Step Workflow

Phase 1 — Create Release Prep Branch

Ensure the workspace is clean and up to date, then check out a temporary package update branch from development:

git checkout development
git pull origin development
git checkout -b release/update-packages

Phase 2 — Update Ivy packages

Run the PowerShell update script. This script temporarily disables local IvySource references to allow NuGet resolution, finds all package references starting with Ivy or Ivy.* in all project files, runs dotnet add to update them to their latest versions, and restores the original settings when finished:

pwsh src/.releases/UpdateIvyPackages.ps1

Phase 3 — Verify Build

Verify that the package updates do not break compilation. Run builds with IvySource set to false to verify NuGet package resolution:

dotnet build src/Ivy.Tendril/Ivy.Tendril.csproj /p:IvySource=false
dotnet build src/Ivy.Tendril.Updater/Ivy.Tendril.Updater.csproj /p:IvySource=false

If the build fails, abort the process and notify the developer. Do not proceed to commit.

Phase 4 — Merge to Development and Increment Version

If the build succeeds, commit the changes and merge the branch back into development:

git add .
git commit -m "chore: update Ivy NuGet package dependencies to latest stable"
git push origin release/update-packages

# Switch to development and merge
git checkout development
git merge release/update-packages --no-ff -m "Merge branch 'release/update-packages' into development"
git push origin development

# Clean up local and remote release branch
git branch -d release/update-packages
git push origin --delete release/update-packages

# Increment the patch version in Directory.Build.props and commit
pwsh src/.releases/IncrementVersion.ps1
git add src/Directory.Build.props
git commit -m "chore: bump patch version for release"
git push origin development

Phase 5 — Create and Merge PR into Main

Generate a Pull Request to merge the updated development branch into main:

gh pr create --base main --head development --title "Release: Merge development into main" --body "Automated release PR created by Tendril Release Skill."

Once the PR is created, wait for/trigger the merge:

If checks are required or you want to queue it:
```
gh pr merge --merge --auto
```
If you can merge immediately:
```
gh pr merge --merge
```

Phase 6 — Sync Main Back into Development

Keep the branches perfectly in sync by merging main back into development after the PR is merged:

git checkout main
git pull origin main
git checkout development
git merge main --no-ff -m "Merge branch 'main' into development to sync"
git push origin development

Phase 7 — Trigger Release Workflow

Trigger the release Action workflow (publish-tendril.yml) on main:

gh workflow run publish-tendril.yml --ref main

Test Mode Deployment

To run a test deployment (which compiles, runs all tests, and packages/bundles the installers as run artifacts, but bypasses publishing to NuGet and creating a GitHub release), trigger the workflow with test-mode set to true (this can be run on development or main):

gh workflow run publish-tendril.yml --ref development -f test-mode=true

Confirm that the workflow has been dispatched by showing the URL/logs:

gh run list --workflow=publish-tendril.yml --limit 1

Troubleshooting & Common Mistakes

Authentication Errors: If gh is not authenticated, authenticate by running gh auth login.
Merge Conflicts: If merging main back into development or development into main has conflicts, stop and notify the user to resolve them manually.
Untracked nuget.config: Do not leave any temporary nuget.config files in the repository.