release-plugin

What this skill does

# Release Plugin

Automated pre-flight checks and shipping workflow. Executes validation, cleanup, and git workflow in sequence, stopping only when user intervention is required.

## Proactive Triggers

Suggest this skill when:
1. User is done making changes to a plugin and ready to ship
2. After running `/validate-plugin` successfully and the user wants to proceed to shipping
3. Before shipping plugin updates to ensure quality gates are met
4. User says "validate and ship", "check and push", or "ready to release"
5. After completing a batch of plugin improvements or command/skill edits

## Input Validation

**Optional Arguments:**
- `--skip-validate` - Skip plugin validation phase
- `--skip-cleanup` - Skip repository cleanup phase
- `--skip-ship` - Run validation and cleanup only, do not proceed to shipping. Useful for pre-flight checks without committing changes.
- `--dry-run` - Preview all phases without executing changes
- `<branch-name>` - Custom branch name for shipping (passed to ship phase)

**Dry-Run Mode:**
When `--dry-run` is specified:
- Run validation (read-only, always safe)
- Preview cleanup changes without executing
- Preview ship operations without executing
- Prefix all output with `[DRY-RUN]`

## Delegation Mechanism

This skill orchestrates three existing capabilities in sequence. It does **not** delegate to subagents -- it executes each phase inline within the current session:

| Phase | Delegates To | How |
|-------|-------------|-----|
| Phase 1: Validate | `/validate-plugin --all` | Runs the full validation logic inline (same session) |
| Phase 2: Cleanup | `/clean-repo` | Runs the cleanup logic inline (same session) |
| Phase 3: Ship | `/ship` | Runs the ship workflow inline (same session) |

Each phase runs sequentially. The output of one phase determines whether the next phase executes. If a phase fails with blocking errors, the workflow stops and reports the failure. Non-blocking warnings are logged but do not stop progression.

## Workflow Overview

```text
Phase 1: Validate --> Phase 2: Clean Repo --> Phase 3: Ship
     |                       |                       |
     v                       v                       v
STOP if errors          Continue with           Full ship
CONTINUE if warnings    artifact cleanup        workflow
```

## Execution

Execute each phase in sequence. Only stop for blocking issues that require user intervention.

---

## Phase 1: Plugin Validation

Run `/validate-plugin --all` to check all plugins in the repository.

### 1.1 Execute Validation

Perform the full validation as defined in `/validate-plugin`:
- Structure validation
- Skill structure validation (nested directories, `name` field)
- Frontmatter validation
- Marketplace schema validation
- Version synchronization
- Content validation
- Namespace collision detection
- Pattern compliance

### 1.2 Evaluate Results

**Blocking (STOP):**
- Any validation errors (missing required fields, invalid structure, version mismatch)
- Display the error summary and stop

**Non-blocking (CONTINUE):**
- Warnings (namespace collisions for `/help`, code blocks in tools/ directory)
- Display warning summary and proceed

### 1.3 Output Format

```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 1: Plugin Validation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Validation output from /validate-plugin --all]

Result: [PASS/FAIL]
  Errors:   [N]
  Warnings: [N]

[If PASS or warnings only]
✓ Validation passed. Proceeding to cleanup.

[If FAIL with errors]
✗ Validation failed with [N] error(s).
  Fix the errors above before shipping.

  [WORKFLOW STOPPED]
```

---

## Phase 2: Repository Cleanup

Run `/clean-repo` to clean artifacts and validate structure.

### 2.1 Execute Cleanup

Perform cleanup as defined in `/clean-repo`:
- Artifact cleanup (temp files, pycache, OS artifacts)
- Structure validation
- Documentation audit
- Configuration consistency check
- Git hygiene

### 2.2 Handle Cleanup Actions

**Auto-execute without confirmation:**
- Delete untracked temp files and artifacts
- Remove `__pycache__` directories
- Prune stale remote branches

**Skip (don't block on):**
- Missing optional documentation
- Suggestions for improvement
- Non-critical warnings

**Require confirmation (STOP if declined):**
- Deleting tracked files
- Moving files to new locations
- Modifying documentation content

### 2.3 Output Format

```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 2: Repository Cleanup
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Cleanup output from /clean-repo]

Result: [CLEAN/CLEANED]
  Artifacts removed: [N]
  Issues found: [N] (non-blocking)

✓ Repository clean. Proceeding to ship.
```

---

## Phase 3: Ship

Run `/ship` to create branch, commit, push, open PR, auto-review, fix issues, and merge.

**If `--skip-ship` was specified:**
```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship (SKIPPED)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ship phase skipped (--skip-ship flag). Validation and cleanup complete.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pre-flight Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summary:
  Phase 1 (Validate): {PASSED/SKIPPED}
  Phase 2 (Cleanup):  {CLEANED/SKIPPED}
  Phase 3 (Ship):     SKIPPED

Ready to ship when you are. Run /release-plugin or /ship to proceed.
```

### 3.1 Pre-flight Check

Before shipping, verify there are changes to ship:

```bash
git status --porcelain
```

**If no changes:**
```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

No changes to ship. Working directory is clean.

✓ Workflow complete (nothing to ship).
```

### 3.2 Execute Ship Workflow

If there are changes, execute the full `/ship` workflow:

1. **Create Branch** - Auto-generate or use provided branch name
2. **Stage and Commit** - Stage all changes, generate commit message
3. **Push to Remote** - Push branch with tracking
4. **Create PR** - Generate PR with summary
5. **Auto-Review** - Analyze for security, performance, quality issues
6. **Fix Loop** - Auto-fix blocking issues (up to 5 attempts)
7. **Merge** - Squash merge and cleanup branches

### 3.3 Handle Ship Results

**Success:**
```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ship output]

✓ PR #[N] merged successfully!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Workflow Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summary:
  Phase 1 (Validate): PASSED
  Phase 2 (Cleanup):  CLEANED
  Phase 3 (Ship):     MERGED

PR URL: [url]
```

**Failure (unfixable issues):**
```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ship output with unfixable issues]

✗ Ship failed - manual intervention required.

PR URL: [url] (still open)

[WORKFLOW STOPPED]
```

---

## Performance

| Phase | Expected Duration | Notes |
|-------|-------------------|-------|
| Phase 1: Validation | 10-30 seconds | Reads and validates all plugin files (Glob + frontmatter parsing) |
| Phase 2: Cleanup | 5-20 seconds | File system scan and artifact removal |
| Phase 3: Ship | 1-5 minutes | Git operations, PR creation, auto-review, and merge |
| **Full workflow** | **2-6 minutes** | End-to-end with all phases enabled |

The ship phase dominates total duration due to git push, GitHub API calls for PR creation, and the auto-review/fix loop. Skipping phases with `--skip-validate` or `--skip-cleanup` saves 15-50 seconds. Dry-run mode completes in under 30 seconds since no git operations execute.

## Stopping Conditions

The workflow stops only when:

| Condition | Phase | Action Required |
|-----------|-------|-----------------|
| Validation errors | 1 | Fix plugin structure/content |
| User declines file operation | 2 | Approve or skip the operation |
| No git/gh/tea CLI available | 3 | Install required tools |
| Unfixable PR issues | 3 | Manual code fixes needed |
| Max fix attempts reached | 3 | Review recurring issues |

The workf