Nemoclaw Maintainer Release Notes

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NemoClaw Maintainer Release Notes

Draft the post-tag NemoClaw Announcement from GitHub tag and compare data. The house style is:

• three narrative lead paragraphs,
• a categorized list of shipped changes,
• one bullet for each shipped change that states what changed and why it matters,
• external-only contributor thanks,
• visible #NNNN GitHub links.

Follow the shared Documentation Writing and Review contract for new or modified Announcement text. State the changed behavior, affected users, and required action when one exists. Do not rewrite unrelated historical release text.

Create a local Markdown draft. Do not create or update a GitHub Discussion; the maintainer posts the announcement manually.

Prerequisites

• You must be in the NemoClaw git repository.
• gh must be authenticated for NVIDIA/NemoClaw.
• The release tag should already exist. If the user is still cutting the tag, use nemoclaw-maintainer-cut-release-tag first.
• The tagged commit should already contain exactly one ## <current-version> entry in docs/changelog/YYYY-MM-DD.mdx. This skill drafts the post-tag Announcement and does not replace or create that canonical entry.
• Use live GitHub and remote tag state, not memory or a stale local branch.
• Read the signed tag annotation or its release-brief.md source for release-range facts. Do not copy internal test results or exception details into the public Announcement.

Step 1: Verify the Release Range

Identify the current release tag and previous release tag. If the user gives only the current version, derive the previous semver tag from remote tags.

git ls-remote https://github.com/NVIDIA/NemoClaw.git \
  refs/heads/main \
  refs/tags/<previous-version> 'refs/tags/<previous-version>^{}' \
  refs/tags/<current-version> 'refs/tags/<current-version>^{}'

Confirm:

• <current-version>^{} peels to the intended release commit.
• The compare range is <previous-version>...<current-version>.

Do not wait for latest. It is an independent post-tag state.

Step 2: Collect the Shipped Surface

Read the tagged commit's matching dated changelog entry as release context, then verify it against live compare and PR data. Preserve factual consistency with the canonical entry, but use live data to fill the richer Announcement narrative and contributor credit.

Use the compare API as the first source of truth:

gh api repos/NVIDIA/NemoClaw/compare/<previous-version>...<current-version> \
  --jq '{status,ahead_by,total_commits,commits:[.commits[] | {sha:.sha, headline:(.commit.message|split("\n")[0]), author:.commit.author.name}], files:[.files[] | {filename,status,changes}]}'

For each PR number in commit headlines, collect live PR metadata:

gh pr view <number> --repo NVIDIA/NemoClaw \
  --json number,title,author,headRepositoryOwner,url,mergeCommit,labels,body,mergedAt

Also inspect any shipped commit that does not have a PR number in the headline. Include it only if it is a real shipped change worth announcing.

Step 3: Decide What to Include

Include the shipped product, docs, release-surface, and CI confidence changes that a reader should know about.

For each included item, write:

• what changed,
• why it matters or why we did it,
• a visible PR link like [#4474](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NemoClaw/pull/4474).

Be careful with sensitive internal cleanup:

• Do not count testing reverts or guardrail reversions as release value unless the user explicitly asks for a full raw changelog.
• If a revert-like commit must be mentioned, use neutral language and do not frame it as someone else's mistake.
• Avoid public wording that could embarrass a teammate.
• Keep the candidate SHA, image identities, E2E results, and exception reason out of the public Announcement. They remain in the signed tag annotation.

Step 4: Categorize the Changes

Use categories that match the release surface. Prefer 4-6 sections. Common categories:

• OpenClaw, Sandbox, and Network Stability
• Windows, WSL, and Onboarding Recovery
• Messaging and OpenClaw Runtime Activation
• Hermes and Inference
• Skills, Docs, and Release Surface
• CI and Release Confidence

Every included shipped change should appear in one category unless the user asks for a shorter note.