judges release.instructions.md

Release & Deployment — Agent Instructions

When preparing and publishing a new release of @kevinrabun/judges, follow this checklist exactly. The publish workflow is automated via GitHub Actions — your job is to prepare the commit and tag.

Overview

Publishing is triggered by pushing a v* git tag (e.g., v3.18.1). The publish-mcp.yml workflow handles:

1. npm publish — builds, packs, and publishes @kevinrabun/judges to the npm registry with provenance
2. npm publish (CLI) — publishes @kevinrabun/judges-cli to the npm registry with provenance (version synced automatically)
3. GitHub Release — creates a release from the tag with auto-generated notes
4. MCP Registry — publishes server.json to the Model Context Protocol registry via mcp-publisher
5. VS Code Marketplace — syncs the extension version from the git tag, installs the local tarball, and publishes via vsce

You do not need to run npm publish or vsce publish locally — the action does it all. Your responsibility is: version bumps, changelogs, commit, and tag.

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Files That Need Version Updates

Update the version string in all four of these files:

File	Field(s)	Example
package.json	"version"	"version": "3.18.1"
server.json	"version" (top-level) and "packages[0].version"	Both must match
vscode-extension/package.json	"version"	"version": "3.18.1"

server.json has two version fields — the top-level "version" and "packages[0].version". Both must be updated. This file has historically gone stale; always verify it.

action.yml does not contain a version string — it is referenced by tag (e.g., uses: KevinRabun/[email protected]), so no edit is needed.

The CI workflow patches vscode-extension/package.json at publish time from the git tag, but keep it in sync locally to avoid confusion.

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Changelogs That Need Updating