Release Lambda Layer

Release a new datadog-lambda-js Lambda layer

This mirrors the "Release" section of the SLS Confluence page "Lambda Layer Node.js" (Commercial + GovCloud). It assumes a Release Candidate has already been validated (self-monitoring + e2e tests passed) before this process starts.

This process pushes git tags, triggers production-publishing GitLab jobs, publishes to the public npm registry, and creates a public GitHub release. Treat every step in the "Guardrails" section as a hard stop — confirm with the user before running it, even if they've approved a similar step earlier in the same run.

Before starting

• Announce the start of the release in a #apm-serverless Slack thread. Use this same thread for every update below. Ask the user to post, don't post on their behalf unless they've explicitly asked you to send Slack messages for them.
• Confirm a Release Candidate deploy already passed self-monitoring and e2e tests for this change. Do not start Phase 1 without it.

Phase 1 — Commercial release

Reference: https://datadoghq.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SLS/pages/3375925277

1. Create a branch for the version bump.
2. Run yarn upgrade dd-trace (or yarn upgrade dd-trace@^a.b.c for a specific version) to pick up the latest tracer.
3. If dd-trace changed, refresh the integration test snapshots. The local RIE-based docker suite is the behavioral gate: UPDATE_SNAPSHOTS=true ./integration_tests_local/run.sh Rely on the end-to-end test suites for coverage that requires real AWS Lambda resources.
4. Bump package.json version to X.Y.0:
   • Minor version bumps on every release, and must match the layer version.
   • Bump major too for breaking changes.
5. Commit as vX.Y.0, open a PR, get approval.
6. Before merging, confirm a Release Candidate deploy already passed for this change (per "Before starting" above).
7. Merge the PR. Tell the user not to merge any other PR until this release finishes — a concurrent merge can tag the wrong commit.
8. git checkout main && git pull
9. git tag vX.Y.0
10. git push --tags origin main — guardrail: confirm with the user before running this. It kicks off the production build in GitLab and can't be cleanly undone.
11. In GitLab tags, open the pipeline for the new tag.
12. Guardrail: confirm before triggering, then run the sign-layer (nodeXX) manual job for every supported runtime. This deploys the layer to every commercial region.
    • Claude does not have GitLab UI/API access by default, so this is normally an instruction the user runs themselves — walk them through clicking the job in the GitLab pipeline and wait for them to confirm it finished before moving on. Only trigger it directly if the user has explicitly set up GitLab API credentials for Claude to use, and still confirm before every single trigger, per the guardrail above.
13. Guardrail: confirm before triggering, then run the publish-npm-package manual job (same access caveat as step 12). Afterward, verify publicly:

    mkdir new-dir && cd new-dir && npm init -y
    npm install datadog-lambda-js@<new version>

14. Guardrail: confirm before creating, then draft a GitHub release on the releases page:
    • Select the new tag and the previous tag, generate release notes.
    • Call out which dd-trace version is packaged in this release (from step 2 of Phase 1) — this is important for users debugging tracer behavior against a specific layer version.
    • Paste in layer ARNs for every runtime and region pattern, e.g.:

      arn:aws:lambda:<AWS_REGION>:464622532012:layer:Datadog-Node18-x:117
      arn:aws:lambda:<AWS_REGION>:464622532012:layer:Datadog-Node20-x:117
      arn:aws:lambda:<AWS_REGION>:464622532012:layer:Datadog-Node22-x:117
      
      arn:aws-us-gov:lambda:us-gov-<AWS_REGION>:002406178527:layer:Datadog-Node18-x:117
      arn:aws-us-gov:lambda:us-gov-<AWS_REGION>:002406178527:layer:Datadog-Node20-x:117
      arn:aws-us-gov:lambda:us-gov-<AWS_REGION>:002406178527:layer:Datadog-Node22-x:117

      (substitute the actual layer version number for 117)
    • Attach the layer zip files.
15. Post the finished release + release notes link to the Slack thread.