Shipped alpha tags carry a dedicated ## X-alpha.N heading with no base
section (see v2026.6.20-alpha.1's tagged CHANGELOG.md); the renderer and
candidate provenance now prefer that dedicated heading for alpha and
correction tags while beta/stable remain pinned to the stable base
section per #103222.
Two competing release-notes pipelines existed: the release branch's
hardened render/verify/provenance pipeline (a486f3ab08 + dcee1da876,
battle-tested by 2026.7.1) and main's lighter prepare-github-release-notes
size gate (#103222). Repo policy is one canonical path; the release-branch
pipeline wins and main's unique value is grafted in:
- scripts/render-github-release-notes.mjs becomes the canonical release
body renderer (full/compact 125k char+byte modes, tag-pinned record
link, verification tail, canonical shipped-baseline format), now also
preferring a correction tag's dedicated changelog section (from
prepare's heading matrix).
- verify-release-notes.mjs is a three-way merge: release's --shipped-ref
cumulative baselines, provenance checks, highlights gate, and the
excluded-record rewrite fix, plus main's compact contribution rows,
externalReferences threading, and both-heading parser compat.
- release-candidate-checklist.mjs gains validateCandidateCheckout and
changelog-provenance gates that run before any dispatch.
- openclaw-release-publish.yml keeps main's fail-before-mutation early
notes gate (retargeted to the renderer) and adopts release's
render/verify_release_tag_target/canonical_release_body_matches flow.
- scripts/prepare-github-release-notes.mjs and its test are deleted;
release-notes-ledger.test.ts stays and pins the merged verify exports.
- .gitignore tracks every repo skill for Git-aware syncs; SKILL.md
runbooks and RELEASING.md document the converged contract.
Dallin Romney