Cull Release Recover skill

Cull Release Recover

Principle

Derive truth from external evidence, then resume the first incomplete safe phase. Never erase immutable release history to make local state look consistent.

Diagnose

1. Resolve the Cull checkout.
2. Run npm run release:cull -- resume --version "$VERSION" --json and parse exactly one JSON envelope. Treat local release state as a cache.
3. Authenticate and compare the prepared commit, remote annotated tag and peeled commit, Actions run, exact asset inventory, public release, updater metadata, provenance, and Homebrew cask/evidence.
4. Classify the next action exactly as rerun-check, prepare-new-version, watch-build, verify-artifact, publish-verified-artifacts, promote-homebrew, or prepare-patch-plan.
5. Execute only the safe resumable phase the user already authorized. Do not repeat a completed signed build or replace verified artifacts.

Burned-tag recovery (STALE_RELEASE_SOURCE / post-publish failure)

When a pushed tag's workflow fails and the tag is immutable (protected tags), never move it. Follow the v0.5.0 / v0.6.1 / v0.6.2 precedent:

1. Record the failure: state fail --version "$VERSION" --code GATE_FAILED|PUBLISH_FAILED|... --evidence-json '{...}'.
2. Fix the underlying cause on main through a normal PR (never inside the tag).
3. Prepare the next version from current main. Pick the next deeper number (failed 0.6.0 → 0.6.1 → 0.6.2). Curated notes still follow the user-facing norm: cover the full delta since the last public release, plain language.
4. The recovery release PR may carry small non-owned commits (smoke records, doc fixes) — only the release commit is file-scoped.
5. Re-run the human smoke gate for the new version (fresh build, fresh docs/releases/<v>-smoke.md, fresh closed bead with external_ref=cull-release-<version>-smoke in the landing worktree's bd).
6. Re-anchor the record to the release PR merge commit before tagging (see cull-release-publish).
7. The resume command derives state from the local cache and can lag external reality (e.g. it may say watch-signed-build for a workflow that already failed). Authenticate the workflow run itself before trusting it.

A post-publish verification failure creates or updates the stable P0 bd incident, blocks later release checks, and returns prepare-patch-plan. Prepare the patch plan but never publish that patch implicitly.

Never delete or move a tag or release. Never force-push, clobber assets, reset unrelated work, bypass a gate, clean cull.db, or treat missing evidence as success.