Release: Close

Administrative wrap-up, not deep QA or a substitute for release certification. The only scope is one Size=Release parent and its direct sub-issues in PUPU Project. Do not read or update a sprint document.

Plumbing: follow .claude/skills/release-open-sprint/board-api.md. All decisions, test evidence, waivers, and growth baseline live in GitHub comments on the Release parent or relevant child issue.

Acts

Act 1 — resolve and roll-call. Resolve the explicit open Release parent; zero or multiple matches requires the project owner's choice. Keep it In Progress while you paginate its direct sub-issues. For each child, verify both GitHub issue state=closed and Project Status=Done. A ticket labelled new feature also needs a fresh release-feature-audit:v2 comment naming this parent, Overall=PASS, and a Candidate digest equal to its delivered candidate; a waiver instead needs the full release-audit-waiver:v2 record on both child and parent. Do not accept free-text comments as evidence. A child without a work-type label blocks the roll-call until the project owner classifies it. Do not deep-review implementation here.

For any open child, the project owner chooses one disposition:

• Must ship: keep it attached; the Release cannot close.
• Defer: comment ticket, reason, destination, and project owner decision on the parent first; then remove it or attach it to a named future Release.
• Cancel: record the project owner's decision, remove the child from this Release, and, if requested, close it as not planned. Never use Project Status=Done to represent canceled work.

Never close a parent while it still owns an open child. Only after required scope is complete may the parent move to In Review. A must-ship child or a new must-fix child keeps or returns the parent to In Progress before any scope change.

Act 2 — smoke via real app. Use the test-api skill with a real LLM (convention: openai:gpt-4.1, never local ollama). Cover chat lifecycle, message send, model/toolkit switch, and one probe through every affected area. Delete probe sessions. If Python changed, restart the sidecar before testing.

Act 3 — Playwright on new features. Drive the key user path once for every child labelled new feature. Assert reachability and core interaction, not pixel perfection.

Act 4 — red lights. Post every failure, repro, and disposition in a close record comment on the parent. A must-fix bug becomes a direct child and blocks closure; first return the parent to In Progress. A deferred or accepted-risk bug is created as unparented backlog or a child of a named future Release only after the project owner decides. This skill does not adjudicate GO/NO-GO.

Act 5 — growth baseline. Run the full growth-analyst collection into .claude/archive/growth and post stars, previous-release downloads, 14-day uniques, snapshot date, and links to the snapshot on the Release parent. This is the next Release's before-picture.

Act 6 — certification handoff and close. Post one structured close record on the parent: direct-child roll-call, audit/waiver decisions, smoke and Playwright evidence, red lights, growth baseline, and certification link. The parent remains In Review until it has this structured certification comment:

<!-- release-certification:v1 -->
Candidate digest: sha256:<64 hex>
Evidence: certification report or run link
Verdict: GO | NO-GO | INCOMPLETE | EXCEPTION
Authority: project owner or COO
Approved at: YYYY-MM-DD

Only GO, or an EXCEPTION with project owner/COO authority, permits closure. NO-GO, INCOMPLETE, missing candidate/evidence, or an unapproved exception keeps the parent In Review. On a passing record, close the parent GitHub issue and set Project Status=Done; read back both states before declaring the release closed.

Common mistakes

• Inferring version scope from Iterations, title, label, or a document instead of direct sub-issues.
• Treating any audit comment as PASS.
• Detaching an unfinished child without recording the project owner's decision.
• Closing a Release parent with open children because GitHub permits it.
• Treating a red light as a GO/NO-GO decision owned by certification.
• Using Done to hide canceled or deferred work.