---
name: release
description: "Cut an Inspector v2 release — two PRs and then a GitHub Release. PR 1 puts the npm audit, any fixes it forces, and the version bump on v2/main; PR 2 merges v2/main into main and is smoke-tested from the production build with a ledger artifact for the maintainers; the maintainer then tags and publishes through the GitHub UI. Also covers the v1 line and what the publish jobs gate on."
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# Cutting a release

Background on what ships and why (the `files` allowlist, the bundling rules, the
container image) is in [`docs/publishing.md`](../../../docs/publishing.md). This
skill is the procedure.

A v2 release is cut from **`main`**, after the milestone's work has been merged
there from `v2/main` — not from `v2/main` itself. The v1 line releases
independently from `v1/main` to the `v1-latest` tag and never touches `main`.

Publishing is automated by two release-gated jobs in
`.github/workflows/main.yml` (`github.event_name == 'release'`), both
`needs: [build, coverage]` — so a release cannot publish with either the build
job or the coverage gate red:

- **`publish`** — runs `npm run pack:verify` as the pre-publish gate, asserts the
  release tag matches the root `package.json` version, then `npm publish
  --access public --provenance`.
- **`publish-github-container-registry`** — the GHCR image.

## The shape: two PRs, then the Release

There is **one version number** (only the root `package.json` has one — the
clients carry none), and the release moves through **two pull requests** in
order. They are not interchangeable and neither one's content belongs on the
other.

| | PR 1 — prep | PR 2 — the milestone merge |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Branch | `v2/chore/<ISSUE>-bump-<X-Y-Z>`, cut from `origin/v2/main` | the milestone-merge branch, cut from `origin/main` |
| Base | **`v2/main`** | **`main`** |
| Carries | the `npm audit` report, **any fixes the audit forces**, and the **version bump** — all three, one PR | the milestone's work, arriving whole from `v2/main`. **No commits of its own.** |
| Verified by | `npm run local:gate` | `npm run local:gate`, **plus** `npm run pack:verify` (not a gate stage), **plus** a hand-driven smoke of every contribution in the milestone, from the **production build**, written up as a **ledger artifact** |
| Merged when | reviewed and green | the ledger is reviewed by the maintainers and clean |

Then, and only then, a maintainer tags and publishes the **GitHub Release**
(step 3), which is what triggers the publish jobs.

⚠️ **Do not fold the two together.** The bump must exist on `v2/main` before the
merge (see [Why the bump goes on `v2/main` first](#why-the-bump-goes-on-v2main-first-2010)),
and PR 2 must stay a pure merge — a commit authored on the merge branch is a
change that exists downstream of `v2/main` and nothing carries it back.

## 1. PR 1 — audit, audit fixes and the bump, on `v2/main`

All three are part of the milestone's work, so all three belong on the develop
branch and flow into `main` together, **in the same PR** — audit first, so the
bump sits on top of a tree you have just checked, and so a reviewer sees the
report and the fixes it forced as one change.

```sh
# Branch from the REMOTE ref, and read the version only once you are on it.
# A default clone has just `main` checked out, so a local `v2/main` may not
# exist and `package.json` here is `main`'s — the released version, not the one
# you are bumping from (Copilot).
git fetch origin v2/main
git checkout -b v2/chore/<ISSUE>-bump-<X-Y-Z> origin/v2/main

# Audit every install that has its own lockfile — root and each client.
# REPORT ONLY. Read the output; do not let npm mutate the tree (see below).
npm audit --audit-level=high
for c in web cli tui launcher; do (cd "clients/$c" && npm audit --audit-level=high); done

node -p "require('./package.json').version"          # what is on v2/main now
npm version minor --no-git-tag-version   # or major / patch; bump only, no tag
node -p "require('./package.json').version"          # confirm, then PR → v2/main
```

Anything it reports is fixed **deliberately** — a direct bump, or an
`overrides` entry — and each fix is its own commit, gated by
`npm run local:gate` before the version bump goes on top.

⚠️ **Do not run `npm audit fix`, with or without `--force`.**
[Dependency placement](../../../AGENTS.md#dependency-placement) rules it out,
and the reason is not `--force`: plain `audit fix` resolves an advisory that has
no *upward* escape inside a declared range by silently **downgrading**. That is
not hypothetical here — `tsup@8.5.1` declares `esbuild: ^0.27.0` against an
advisory covering `0.27.3 - 0.28.0`, and `audit fix` walked three installs back
to `0.27.2` (~700 lines of lockfile churn for a low-severity dev-only advisory;
tried and reverted in #2058, written up in the `local-dev` skill). `local:gate`
does not detect a version regression, so nothing downstream would have caught
it. `--force` is worse again — it applies fixes *outside* the declared range,
trading a known vulnerability for an unvetted major.

So the release step is the **report**, and the judgment stays with a person.
Where `audit` names something with no in-range fix, pin it with `overrides`;
where it needs a major, that is its own issue and its own PR, not a release-day
edit. If something can't be resolved before the release ships, say so in the
release notes and leave it to the alert-driven pipeline (#2229) rather than
forcing it here.

This step is a **backstop, not a substitute** for #2229's alert-driven issues —
those are what surface a transitive vulnerability well before a release is cut,
tracked and fixed as their own PRs. This exists so a release is never gated on
remembering to check `npm audit` separately.

The branch name carries the version you are bumping **to**, so it is named after
that second reading. If you want it before branching:
`git show origin/v2/main:package.json | node -p "JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync(0)).version"`.

⚠️ **Never copy a version out of this file.** It would be a version that has
already shipped by the time you read it, and following it would cut a release
branch named for the wrong release (Copilot).

⚠️ **`--no-git-tag-version` is load-bearing.** A bare `npm version` also tags,
and the tag would land on a `v2/main` commit — but the release must be cut from
`main`, so the tag has to point at the merge commit there (step 3). Tagging here
creates a tag on a commit that is never released.

**PR 1 merges before PR 2 is opened.** The merge branch is cut from `main` and
takes `v2/main` whole, so opening it early means merging a `v2/main` that does
not yet carry the bump.

## 2. PR 2 — merge `v2/main` → `main`, smoke-test it, and write the ledger

Through the usual milestone-merge branch. It now carries the bump, so the
release lands on `main` with the version already correct.

Between steps 1 and 2 the two branches **do** differ, and that is expected, not
drift: `v2/main` reads the version being built while `main` still reads the one
currently released. What this ordering removes is *post-release* drift — once the
milestone merge lands they agree again, and `v2/main` is never left **behind**
`main`. If you see `v2/main` ahead of `main`, a release is in flight; if you see
it behind, something went wrong.

### 2a. Smoke-test the release candidate from the production build

The merge branch's tree **is** the release candidate. Check that rather than
assume it — the merge commit's tree and `origin/v2/main`'s must be identical:

```sh
git rev-parse origin/v2/main^{tree}
git rev-parse <merge-commit>^{tree}     # must print the same hash
```

Then drive it. Work from a **dedicated worktree** with its own full
`npm install` (a symlinked `node_modules` passes lint and tests and then fails
every story file), run `npm run local:gate` there, and exercise the app from the
**production build** — the packaged bin and the built bundles, not `vite dev`.
The `local-dev`, `test-servers` and `pre-push-gate` skills cover the mechanics.

**Then run `npm run pack:verify` there as its own step.** It is what proves the
tarball a consumer installs actually resolves, and ⚠️ **`local:gate` does not
run it** — `local:gate:stages` has no packaging stage, and a green gate says
nothing about the published tarball (#2380). CI runs it only in the `publish`
job, which fires on the published GitHub Release — after the tag exists — so
skipping it here means the first signal of a broken package arrives too late to
stop the release. It needs network access; record its result (tarball size and
the `pack:verify OK` line) for the ledger below.

**Every contribution closed in the milestone gets driven, not read.** The bar is
observed behavior from the running app — a rendered panel, a status attribute, a
server's own stderr — against a real test server, through whichever clients the
change touches (web, CLI, TUI). "Its tests pass" is not evidence for this step;
the gate already said that. For a change with no observable surface, the
evidence is the thing that holds it — a probe that makes the guard fire, a
counted before/after, a resolved binary path.

### 2b. The ledger artifact

Write the results up as a **published artifact** for the maintainers to review,
and link it from PR 2. Shape it like the
[v2.5.0 ledger](https://claude.ai/code/artifact/6f25d292-3623-419f-af7f-26aba57247ef):

- **Masthead** — repo, PR number and merge commit, version, date; and a
  standfirst saying what tree was tested and that its hash matches
  `origin/v2/main`, plus whether the milestone payload is complete (the only
  issue left open should be the merge itself).
- **Verdict band** — `local:gate` and `pack:verify` results, milestone issues
  verified as `N / N`, distinct test count, regressions found.
- **The automated gate** — one cell per `local:gate` stage with its number
  (file counts, test counts, smoke count), and a note on what is new this
  milestone.
- **The packaging check** — `pack:verify` in its own cell, apart from the gate
  stages because it is not one of them: its result and the tarball size.
- **One section per theme**, each a table of *Issue · What was driven ·
  Observed · Status*. One row per closed issue, issue-linked, with the actual
  output in the Observed cell.
- **Notes / findings** — anything that is a caveat rather than a pass, called
  out rather than folded into a row.

A row that says "verified" without saying what was run is not a ledger entry.

### 2c. When the smoke finds something

**The fix goes on `v2/main`, never on the merge branch.** File the issue, fix it
through an ordinary PR against `v2/main`, then merge `v2/main` into the merge
branch again so the fix arrives the same way everything else did. That keeps the
merge tree byte-identical to `origin/v2/main` — which is both the invariant
checked in 2a and the reason a finding here does not create a commit that only
exists downstream (#2000 → #2092; #2215 → #2216–2224).

Re-run the affected part of the smoke afterwards and update the ledger; it is
the artifact the maintainers approve the merge on.

## 3. Tag and publish the Release

**Normally this is done by a maintainer through the GitHub UI**, after PR 2 has
merged: *Releases → Draft a new release → Choose a tag → type the bare `x.y.z`
→ Create new tag on publish*, with **Target: `main`**, then generate the notes
and publish. Publishing the Release is what fires the `publish` and
`publish-github-container-registry` jobs.

The equivalent by hand, for when the UI is not an option — derive the tag from
the version that just landed rather than typing one, since a hard-coded tag is
either already taken (so `git tag` aborts) or, worse, wrong:

```sh
git fetch origin main
VERSION=$(git show origin/main:package.json | node -p "JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync(0)).version")
echo "$VERSION"                                  # sanity-check before tagging
git tag "$VERSION" origin/main && git push origin "$VERSION"
# then draft & publish a GitHub Release for that tag → triggers `publish`
```

⚠️ **Tag `origin/main`, not your local `HEAD`.** `git checkout main && git pull`
resolves through whatever merge-or-rebase strategy you have configured, so a
divergent local `main` can quietly produce or replay local commits. Tagging
`HEAD` there tags a commit that is not on `origin/main`, and `git push origin
<tag>` pushes only the tag — leaving a release whose commit was never published.
The UI path avoids this by construction: the target is `main` itself.

⚠️ **No `v` prefix.** This repo's release tags are bare `x.y.z` — which is why
the command above tags `$VERSION` and not `v$VERSION`, and why the tag typed
into the UI carries no prefix either. npm's own `tag-version-prefix` defaults to
`v` and the repo sets no `.npmrc`, so a bare `npm version` would have produced a
mismatched tag; tagging by hand is what keeps it right. (The workflow's assert
step strips a leading `v` before comparing, so a `v`-prefixed tag would still
publish — it would just be inconsistent with every previous release.)

The release's target commit selects which workflow runs, so this only publishes
when a release is cut from a commit carrying the v2 workflow.

## Why the bump goes on `v2/main` first (#2010)

It used to happen on the milestone-merge branch, which is cut from `main` — so
the bump existed only *downstream* of `v2/main` and nothing carried it back.
`v2/main` sat at `2.0.0` through both the 2.1.0 and 2.2.0 releases. That is not
cosmetic: a branch cut from a milestone-merge branch silently carries the bump
into an unrelated PR (this happened on #2009, where a container bugfix arrived
with a `2.0.0 → 2.2.0` diff), and anything reading the version in development
reported a version two releases old.

⚠️ **Never close a drift by merging `main` into `v2/main`.** `main` carries the
entire pre-v2 v1 history (~230 commits `v2/main` does not have), so a back-merge
grafts all of it into the develop branch's log permanently in order to deliver a
two-file change. Bumping first means there is nothing to back-merge.

## The v1 line

Flat: `feature branch → v1/main → npm v1-latest`, with no merge into `main` at
any point. The two lines publish independently under separate dist-tags, so a v1
fix does **not** need forward-porting to reach users on
`npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector@v1-latest`.