The held regression candidate needs an honest forward beta above published 6.4.3-rc.1. Bind only 6.4.4 to release/v6.4 without capturing patch 40 or weakening candidate checks. Exercise the actual release and rehearsal branch-policy shell and retain historical rollback mapping.
Change-source: pulse-maintainer
Explain actions previously opened a blank conversation and discarded richer
finding context. Dispatch the selected explanation through shared chat
handling, retain evidence and drafts, and cancel pending work on tenant
switches. Keep unrelated workflow starters out of scoped conversations.
Record the remaining real-model and customer-outcome qualification gap
without treating scripted browser responses as proof of product value.
Three defects that the v6.4.3-rc.1 cut exposed, each with its contract note
and proof:
1. scripts/release-preflight-worker.sh published the smoke stack on host port
7655 and probed it directly. pulse-dev also hosts the maintainer's dogfood
Pulse instance on 127.0.0.1:7655 and a second instance on 17655, so the
release smoke failed to start after every other stage had passed on the
qualified head. The worker now honours PULSE_RELEASE_PREFLIGHT_E2E_PORT,
otherwise takes the first candidate host port pair it verifies free and
fails fast when none is, probes health and update status on that port, and
hands Playwright the same base URL.
2. .github/workflows/publish-helm-chart.yml resolved the chart version before
checking out the repository, but de41ea1883 made that step call
scripts/write_github_output.py, so every chart publish since failed with
"can't open file". Run 33580123246 hit it after all other staging passed;
the checkout now precedes the resolver.
3. docs/release-control/control_plane.json maps the 6.4.3 version prefix to
release/v6.4. Run 33579042375, dispatched from main, failed inside the
compiler dispatch because main advanced one minute after the pipeline
pinned its source SHA; with pull requests landing every few minutes a
candidate cannot hold its SHA between prepare and compile. release/v6.4
was created from main at the exact-SHA-qualified commit 56e51e622e and
carries these same fixes; v6.4.3-rc.1 published from it.
The deployment-installability contract records the worker port and toolchain
rules and the Helm checkout order; release_preflight_test.py and
build_release_assets_test.go pin them.
Stable promotions built whatever the dispatch branch was at that second.
The resolver checked that HEAD descends from the promoted release
candidate but never that its content matches, so v6.4.0 shipped 64
changed files, including product code, that v6.4.0-rc.12 had not
soaked. Every v6 version was mapped to main, which now moves every few
minutes under the autonomous maintainer, so each fix to a candidate
brought everything landed since and stable was never an exact soaked
commit. Five of six stable minor releases shipped under version-bound
owner exceptions that waived the soak.
From v6.5.0 the release train applies (RELEASE_PROMOTION_POLICY.md,
"Release Train"): a two-week train sized to measured velocity, a
release/v6.N branch per train declared in the control plane so the
workflow refuses a dispatch from anywhere else, a stable promotion that
may differ from its candidate only in release metadata unless
hotfix_exception names active customer harm, and a seven day soak for
minor releases. The 6.4.x line stays on main so the v6.4.3-rc.1
candidate already prepared there is unaffected. The gap is registered
as coverage gap release-train-exact-candidate-promotion.
release/v6.3.2 becomes the governed branch for exactly version 6.3.2 via
the existing legacy_release_lines mechanism, so the surgical hotfix can
dispatch from its branch instead of shipping current main. Scoped to the
single version so 6.3.0/6.3.1 backfills and the 6.4 line stay on main.