Team Release

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.