/silver:release

Overview

/silver:release is the Silver Bullet orchestrator for milestone-level publishing. It handles versioned releases, changelogs, documentation updates, GitHub Releases, and milestone archival.

It never publishes directly — it orchestrates only. This workflow operates at the milestone level — it closes out a complete milestone, not a single phase.

silver:release uses the v0.52.0 APO catalog — it maps to WF-SILVER-RELEASE and finishes with AF-RELEASE. Design handoff and documentation are represented through catalog atomic flows and release workflow steps when UI milestone evidence requires them. This produces the design handoff package before the release is cut. See Composable Flows for the full catalog.

When to Use

Entry trigger signals for /silver:release:

"release" / "publish" / "version" / "go live"
"cut a release" / "tag v" / "ship to users" / "deploy to prod"
"changelog" / "release notes"

Ship disambiguation

Silver Bullet distinguishes between phase-level ship (silver:ship) and milestone-level release (silver:release) based on context signals:

Signal in your message	Route
Contains version number (v2.0, 1.4.0…)	`silver:release`
Contains "changelog" or "release notes"	`silver:release`
Contains "go live", "to production", "publicly"	`silver:release`
Active phase in progress, no version signal	`silver:ship` (phase merge)
No active phase, end of milestone	`silver:release`

Catalog execution (`WF-SILVER-RELEASE`)

Standard composition chain

WF-SILVER-RELEASE
  → AF-QUALITY-GATE → AF-REVIEW-REQUEST → AF-REVIEW → AF-REVIEW-TRIAGE
  → AF-VERIFY → AF-SECURE → AF-VALIDATE
  → AF-BRANCH-FINISH → AF-COMPLETION-AUDIT → AF-SHIP
  → AF-RELEASE → silver:create-release (last)

`AF-RELEASE` sub-steps

Pre-release quality gate — AF-QUALITY-GATE plus domain audit evidence.
UAT and milestone audits — AF-VERIFY checks cross-phase evidence and release readiness artifacts.
Gap closure — dynamic insertion of AF-PLAN, AF-EXECUTE, and AF-DEBUG repair atoms when the release V-gate finds missing work.
Documentation and handoff — AF-DOCUMENT updates durable docs and release handoff evidence.
Ship prep — AF-BRANCH-FINISH → AF-COMPLETION-AUDIT → AF-SHIP.
Create release — silver:create-release runs after release V-loop evidence and milestone archival are complete.

Gap-closure loop (max 2 iterations)

When milestone audit finds gaps: silver:plan for gap phases → nested silver:feature per gap → return to AF-QUALITY-GATE pre-release quality gate. After 2 iterations with remaining gaps, SB presents: release anyway / extend milestone / abort.

Delivery tail (orchestrator parent mode)

When orchestrator_mode is parent, the catalog delivery tail runs automatically (AF-QUALITY-GATE → review → verify → secure → ship prep → silver:create-release). Audit, UAT, milestone, and gap-closure steps remain parent-driven.

4-Stage Pre-Release Quality Gate

Before /silver:create-release or gh release create, the current session must complete all four stages in docs/internal/pre-release-quality-gate.md and record hook markers in quality-gate-state.

Stage	Requirement	Marker
1	ENHANCED adversarial review — 2× DISCOVERY clean on 1177-row manifest	`adversarial-review-clean`
2	SENTINEL per-skill — 1 clean pass per `skills/*/SKILL.md` (85 skills)	`sentinel-skills-clean`
3	Code security — `security` skill on `hooks/` and `scripts/`	(in `required_deploy`)
4a	100% public site scan — every `site/**` page reviewed for release claims; both freshness tests green	`quality-gate-stage-3`
4b	Verification bundle — `/verify-tests`, live matrix, tri-host smoke, full test rerun	`full-test-suite-rerun`

Stage 4a site scan (mandatory): update homepage, Help Center, changelog, reference tables, version strings, workflow catalog order, and site/help/search.js when pages change. Run both scripts before recording the marker:

bash tests/scripts/test-site-content-freshness.sh
bash tests/scripts/test-site-doc-freshness.sh

CI green gate (introduced in v0.51.1): bash scripts/pre-release-gate.sh runs site freshness tests plus bash tests/run-all-tests.sh — never tag on red CI.

Non-Skippable Gates

🔒

These steps cannot be skipped regardless of §10 preferences or user request:

/silver:quality-gates pre-release (AF-QUALITY-GATE)
/verify-tests fresh release-session test run (AF-VERIFY)
security (AF-SECURE) is mandatory for every release
silver:ship (AF-SHIP) must succeed before milestone archival
/silver:create-release runs only after AF-RELEASE evidence and milestone archival

Example Invocation

/silver:release Cut v0.52.0

Silver Bullet routes to release workflow. Pre-release quality gates → UAT audit → milestone audit → security hard gate → docs and milestone summary → cross-artifact review → deploy readiness → fresh tests → silver:ship → milestone archival → /silver:create-release → post-release items summary.

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