Argument check: If no version number is provided:

1. Read production/session-state/active.md and the most recent file in production/milestones/ (if they exist) to infer the target version.
2. If a version is found: report "No version argument provided — inferred [version] from milestone data. Proceeding." Then confirm with AskUserQuestion: "Releasing [version]. Is this correct?"
3. If no version is discoverable: use AskUserQuestion to ask "What version number should be released? (e.g., v1.0.0)" and wait for user input before proceeding. Do NOT default to a hardcoded version string.

When this skill is invoked, orchestrate the release team through a structured pipeline.

Decision Points: At each phase transition, use AskUserQuestion to present the user with the subagent's proposals as selectable options. Write the agent's full analysis in conversation, then capture the decision with concise labels. In collaborative mode, the user must approve before moving to the next phase. In guided mode the pipeline advances automatically unless a phase is BLOCKED; in autonomous mode it runs end to end, recording each phase outcome via log_decision. Decisions in automation_always_ask categories (is_always_ask_category helper) always prompt regardless of mode. See .claude/docs/automation-modes.md.

Phase 0: Resolve Config

!bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../../hooks/yaml-helper.sh" resolve_config --keys review_mode,automation,team.size,workflow,project.stage

Resolved above — use as-is; --review overrides review_mode. No block → defaults in .claude/docs/config-resolution.md.

Stage check — before anything is spawned. This skill ships a release, and /gate-check release is the readiness gate that must pass first; only its PASS sets project.stage to Release. If the resolved project.stage is anything else — Polish, an earlier stage, or not set — stop before Phase 1 and spawn nothing:

"The release readiness gate has not passed (project.stage: [stage]) — run /gate-check release first."

Then ask with AskUserQuestion, in every automation mode — an override is never taken on the user's behalf: [A] Stop — I'll run /gate-check release (recommended) / [B] Proceed anyway — override the stage check. On [A], end the run: Verdict BLOCKED — release gate not passed. On [B], ask (plain text) why, then record the override as Stage override: project.stage was [stage] — release gate not passed; the user chose to proceed: [reason] in the Phase 1 brief, in the go/no-go record (go-no-go-[version].md) and in the final report. An override never changes the stage itself.

review_mode sets director-gate depth, and this pipeline has no director gate: no phase below spawns CD-, TD-, PR- or AD-PHASE-GATE, at any review_mode. Its phase gates are the pipeline's own decision points (defined under team.size below), and the agents that work at them are team members, not director gates.

automation drives the Decision Points note above. See the Decision Points note above and .claude/docs/automation-modes.md for how each mode changes pipeline behavior.

team.size: which agents are active (orthogonal to review_mode gate-depth and workflow docs).

• individual (default): release-manager only. Other agents consulted via the release-manager, not spawned separately.
• small: + producer + devops-engineer + qa-lead + community-manager.
• studio: + security-engineer + analytics-engineer + localization-lead + performance-analyst, and network-programmer when the game is multiplayer (the full pipeline as documented). A non-core agent needed at individual routes through the nearest active core agent with an informational note. "Phase gate" means any phase that ends in an AskUserQuestion decision point this pipeline itself lists — a transition under Decision Points above, the stage check, or the Phase 6 deploy question — whatever the automation mode. guided and autonomous change how a gate is passed (it auto-advances, or is recorded with log_decision), not whether it is one, so bounded-exception condition (3) below holds at it in every mode. An agent restricted to "phase gates only" is spawned at those points and no others. This active-set scoping applies throughout the pipeline below: any phase that names an agent outside the active set routes through the nearest core agent rather than spawning it.

Announce the active set before Phase 1 — never let the collapse be silent. Before spawning anything, state in one line which agents this run will actually spawn, and which the pipeline below names but will not spawn at the resolved team.size. For example:

Active set (team.size: <resolved>): <the agents listed for that size above>. Not spawned this run: <every other agent this pipeline names> — consulted through <nearest active core agent>. Raise team.size (or modes.rigor) to widen.

Fill it from the team.size list directly above and the agents this file's own pipeline names — not from an example. Both sets differ per orchestrator.

The pipeline below reads as a multi-agent fan-out and at the shipped default it is one or two agents — team-release names ten and runs one, team-narrative names six across five phases and runs writer alone. The collapse is correct: team.size is rigor-fronted and the narrow default is the token lever. Without saying so, a reader cannot distinguish a correctly-collapsed run from a broken pipeline, and the per-agent "routes through the nearest core agent with an informational note" rule above fires at routing time and never states the shape of the run as a whole.

This is the same rule as the skipped-check reporting elsewhere in this file: a constraint that is enforced but never surfaced is indistinguishable, to the person reading the output, from one that was never enforced.

Team Composition

• release-manager — Release tag, versioning, changelog, patch notes, deployment
• qa-lead — Test sign-off, regression suite, release quality gate
• devops-engineer — Build pipeline, artifacts, deployment automation
• security-engineer — Pre-release security audit (invoke if game has online/multiplayer features or player data)
• network-programmer — Netcode stability sign-off (invoke if game has multiplayer)
• analytics-engineer — Verify telemetry events fire correctly and dashboards are live
• localization-lead — Verify every shipped string is translated
• performance-analyst — Benchmark the release build against its performance targets
• community-manager — Launch announcement and player-facing messaging, written from the patch notes
• producer — Go/no-go decision, stakeholder communication, scheduling

How to Delegate

Use the Agent tool to spawn each team member as a subagent:

• subagent_type: release-manager — Release tag, versioning, changelog, patch notes, deployment
• subagent_type: qa-lead — Test sign-off, regression suite, release quality gate
• subagent_type: devops-engineer — Build pipeline, artifacts, deployment automation
• subagent_type: security-engineer — Security audit for online/multiplayer/data features
• subagent_type: analytics-engineer — Telemetry event verification and dashboard readiness
• subagent_type: community-manager — Launch communication, written from the patch notes
• subagent_type: producer — Go/no-go decision, stakeholder communication
• subagent_type: network-programmer — Netcode stability sign-off (invoke if game has multiplayer)
• subagent_type: localization-lead — Translation completeness sign-off (Phase 4)
• subagent_type: performance-analyst — Performance benchmarks against targets (Phase 4)

Brief each agent — do not dump context. Read the shared inputs once and pass a distilled brief inline: the lines each agent actually needs, never a file path for a document you have already read (an agent handed a path re-reads the whole file). Pass a path only for a document you have not read and only that agent needs.

End every agent prompt with a return contract: "Write your full output to [path] — that named path is your write authorisation under the bounded exception below, so write it without a separate approval prompt. Return only (1) the path written, (2) a ≤5-bullet summary of decisions, (3) any BLOCKED/CONCERNS items, one line each. Do not restate the documents you read." Without it, an agent returns everything it read back into this session.

Substitute a real path for [path]. One file per agent under production/releases/, except the two whose homes are fixed elsewhere. An active agent standing in for one outside the active set writes that agent's file:

Every one of those thirteen outputs needs a stated destination. production/releases/ is where /release-checklist already writes, and docs/patch-notes/[version].md is where /patch-notes already writes, so the release record lands in one place regardless of which skill produced it.

A separate file per agent, not one appended record. Phase 3 and Phase 4 spawn agents in parallel; two agents appending to one file race, and the loser's section vanishes silently.

Why this does not violate the Collaboration Protocol. CLAUDE.md requires an agent to ask "May I write this to [filepath]?" before Write/Edit. A subagent spawned here writes without asking, and that is a deliberate, bounded exception rather than an oversight — the same call already made for consistency-check appending to active.md. The exception holds only when all three are true: (1) the path is one you named in the prompt, so the user approved the destination when they approved the phase; (2) it is a new artifact under production/, docs/ or tests/, never an edit to existing source or config; (3) the phase that produced it is itself gated by an AskUserQuestion before the pipeline advances. Outside those three, the agent must ask. Do not "fix" this by asking per subagent — a prompt per agent per phase makes an orchestrator unusable, which is why the exception exists.

Launch independent agents in parallel where the pipeline allows it (e.g., Phase 3 agents can run simultaneously).

Pipeline

Phase 1: Release Planning

Delegate to producer:

• Confirm all milestone acceptance criteria are met
• Identify any scope items deferred from this release
• Set the target release date and communicate to team
• Output: release authorization with scope confirmation

Phase 2: Release Candidate

Delegate to release-manager:

• Bump version numbers in all relevant files on main; the commit carrying the bump is the release candidate. Development is trunk-based — a release is a tag on main (applied in Phase 6), not a branch
• Confirm the release checklist from Polish (/release-checklist, run before /gate-check release) is complete for this candidate; run it now only if none exists
• Cut a release/[version] branch from the candidate only if this release needs stabilising (a freeze, platform certification) — bug fixes only there, and every fix lands on main as well
• Output: release candidate commit (plus the release/* branch, if one was cut) and checklist

Phase 3: Quality Gate (parallel)

Delegate in parallel:

• qa-lead: Execute full regression test suite. Test all critical paths. Verify no open bugs at the severities /gate-check release blocks for this workflow: S1 at every tier, S2 and S3 too at full. Sign off on quality.
• devops-engineer: Build release artifacts for all target platforms. Verify builds are clean and reproducible. Run automated tests in CI.
• security-engineer (if game has online features, multiplayer, or player data): Conduct pre-release security audit. Review authentication, anti-cheat, data privacy compliance. Sign off on security posture.
• network-programmer (if game has multiplayer): Sign off on netcode stability. Verify lag compensation, reconnect handling, and bandwidth usage under load.

When either agent is in the active set, decide its condition from platform.online and platform.multiplayer in project.yaml, plus whether the game stores player data. A key that is absent is not a false: ask the user rather than assume an offline game. An agent skipped on these grounds says so by name in the Phase 3 output — e.g. security-engineer: not spawned — platform.online: false, platform.multiplayer: false, no player data.

Phase 4: Localization, Performance, and Analytics

Delegate (can run in parallel with Phase 3 if resources available):

• Verify all strings are translated (delegate to localization-lead if available)
• Run performance benchmarks against targets (delegate to performance-analyst if available)
• analytics-engineer: Verify all telemetry events fire correctly on release build. Confirm dashboards are receiving data. Check that critical funnels (onboarding, progression, monetization if applicable) are instrumented.
• Output: localization, performance, and analytics sign-off — one file per agent (table above)

Phase 5: Go/No-Go

Before delegating, get the technical-director release sign-off. The producer cannot spawn agents, so the orchestrator does: spawn technical-director at review_mode: full only — this is a director review, not a PHASE-GATE, so lean and solo skip it. Ask for GO, CONCERNS or NO-GO on the release candidate's technical state, or NOT ASSESSED naming what it could not read. When it is not spawned, the go/no-go record says technical-director sign-off: not run (review_mode: <mode>) instead of listing it as given; a NOT ASSESSED answer is recorded as such and never counted as a sign-off.

Delegate to producer, passing every sign-off collected so far:

• Collect sign-off from: qa-lead, release-manager, devops-engineer, security-engineer (if spawned in Phase 3), network-programmer (if spawned in Phase 3), and technical-director (if spawned above)
• Carry a stage-check override, if there was one, into the go/no-go record as its Stage override: line
• Evaluate any open issues — are they blocking or can they ship?
• Make the go/no-go call
• Output: release decision with rationale

If producer declares NO-GO:

• Surface the decision immediately: "PRODUCER: NO-GO — [rationale, e.g., S1 bug found in Phase 3]."
• Use AskUserQuestion with options:
  • Fix the blocker and re-run the affected phase
  • Defer the release to a later date
  • Override NO-GO with documented rationale (user must provide written justification)
• Skip Phase 6 entirely — do not tag, deploy to staging, deploy to production, or spawn community-manager.
• Produce a partial report summarizing Phases 1–5 and what was skipped (Phase 6) and why.
• Verdict: BLOCKED — release not deployed.

After the user selects "Override NO-GO with documented rationale":

• Ask (plain text, not widget): "Please describe the justification for overriding the NO-GO verdict. This will be embedded in the release record."
• Wait for the user's written justification.
• Embed the justification text in the partial approval record before Phase 6: append a "⚠️ Override Justification: [user's text]" field.
• Only then proceed to Phase 6.

Phase 6: Deployment (if GO)

This phase always requires explicit user approval regardless of modes.automation — including autonomous mode. Production deployment is irreversible and high-stakes; it is NOT covered by the configurable automation_always_ask categories, so this skill guards it unconditionally. Before tagging or deploying, use AskUserQuestion:

• Prompt: "Producer verdict is GO. Execute Phase 6 — tag, deploy to staging, deploy to production?"
• Options: [A] Yes, deploy / [B] Staging only — hold production / [C] Stop here

Only after explicit approval, delegate to release-manager + devops-engineer:

• Tag the release in version control
• Finalize the changelog drafted in Polish (/changelog), adding what changed since the gate
• Deploy to staging for final smoke test
• Deploy to production (only if the user approved production above)
• Human team action: Monitor dashboards and error rates for 48 hours post-release. Schedule a follow-up retrospective using /retrospective at the 48-hour mark.

In parallel with deployment, delegate to release-manager:

• Finalize the patch notes drafted in Polish using /patch-notes [version] — release-manager carries that skill and the Bash access its git log step needs; community-manager has neither

Then hand those patch notes to community-manager:

• Prepare launch announcement (store page updates, social media, community post)
• Draft known issues post if any S3+ issues shipped
• Output: all player-facing release communication, ready to publish on deploy confirmation

Phase 7: Post-Release

• release-manager: Generate release report (what shipped, what was deferred, metrics)
• producer: Update milestone tracking, communicate to stakeholders
• qa-lead: Monitor incoming bug reports for regressions
• community-manager: Publish all player-facing communication, monitor community sentiment
• analytics-engineer: Confirm live dashboards are healthy; alert if any critical events are missing
• Keep the 48-hour monitoring window from Phase 6: bugs, dashboards and community sentiment are watched for 48 hours after release (release-manager's own watch runs to its 72h report)
• Schedule post-release retrospective if issues occurred

Error Recovery Protocol

First, verify the artifact. If the return contract named a path, check the path exists before treating the phase as done — a named artifact that is not on disk is a failed phase, however fluent the response reads. An agent can burn a full phase and return a plausible preamble having written nothing, which is neither BLOCKED nor an error nor "cannot complete", so the trigger below never fires. Resume it naming the unmet contract; the context is usually still there.

If any spawned agent returns BLOCKED, errors, or cannot complete: surface it immediately, don't proceed past a dependency it blocks, and always produce a partial report. Full procedure: .claude/docs/error-recovery-protocol.md.

Common blockers:

• Input file missing (story not found, GDD absent) → redirect to the skill that creates it
• ADR status is Proposed → do not implement; accept it with /architecture-decision accept ADR-NNNN once decided
• Scope too large → split into two stories via /create-stories
• Conflicting instructions between ADR and story → surface the conflict, do not guess

File Write Protocol

All file writes (release checklists, changelogs, patch notes, deployment scripts) are delegated to sub-agents and sub-skills. The two follow different rules, and the distinction matters here more than anywhere else in the pipeline:

• Sub-agents spawned via Agent follow the bounded exception documented above under "Why this does not violate the Collaboration Protocol" — the path is one you named, the artifact is new under production/, docs/ or tests/, and the phase is gated by an AskUserQuestion. A sub-agent does not prompt per write inside those bounds; outside them it must ask.
• Sub-skills are not sub-agents and the exception does not reach them. They follow the normal Collaboration Protocol and ask before writing.

This orchestrator does not write files directly. Nothing here authorises an outward-facing or irreversible action — tags, pushes, builds and storefront changes require explicit confirmation regardless of which rule above applies.

Output

A summary report covering: release version, scope, quality gate results, go/no-go decision, deployment status, and monitoring plan.

Verdict: COMPLETE — release executed and deployed. Verdict: BLOCKED — release halted; the stage check stopped it, go/no-go was NO, or a hard blocker is unresolved.

Next Steps

• Monitor post-release dashboards for 48 hours.
• Run /retrospective if significant issues occurred during the release.
• project.stage reads Release unless the stage check was overridden: /gate-check release is the Polish → Release readiness gate, run before this skill. After an override the stage still reads what it did. Only /gate-check changes project.stage (on a PASS, or a CONCERNS whose risks the user accepted), so this skill never writes it or production/stage.txt. Release is the terminal stage in the project.stage enum — there is no post-launch stage value. Record live/post-launch status in the release report, not in project.stage.