Release Plan Sidecars

Release Plan Sidecars

Release plan sidecars let one project carry multiple independent release and publishing tracks without putting every variant into `.aiwg/release.config`.

Location

Store plans beside the main AIWG project config:

.aiwg/aiwg.config
.aiwg/release.config
.aiwg/releases/<plan-id>.json
.aiwg/releases/<plan-id>.yaml
.aiwg/releases/<plan-id>.yml

The schema is `agentic/code/frameworks/sdlc-complete/schemas/flows/release-plan.schema.yaml`.

Selection

`flow-release` discovers `.json`, `.yaml`, and `.yml` files under `.aiwg/releases/`.

  • Use `--plan <id>` when more than one plan exists.
  • If exactly one sidecar exists, `flow-release` may select it automatically.
  • If multiple plans exist and no plan is selected, the flow must stop and list

available plan ids.

  • If duplicate ids exist, the flow must stop and require unique ids.
  • If a requested plan is missing, the flow must stop; it must not silently fall

back to `.aiwg/release.config`.

Before taking release actions, agents must report the active plan id, sidecar path, target, and effective delivery mode.

Precedence

When a sidecar is active, its `delivery.mode` is authoritative for that release track. It overrides broad project defaults from `.aiwg/aiwg.config`, such as `direct`, `pr`, or `pr-required`, where they conflict.

This allows a repository to keep normal development in PR-required mode while a release plan uses tag-only, dispatch-only, or another explicit publish path.

Plan Contents

A sidecar can define:

  • release identity: `id`, `name`, and `target`
  • build commands
  • validation gates
  • publish targets and registries/remotes
  • artifact, signing, SBOM, and provenance requirements
  • changelog, docs, and release-note expectations
  • post-release verification commands
  • delivery override behavior

For a stable release mirrored to GitHub, post-release verification must fail until exactly one Announcements discussion exists for the version and links the GitHub release, npm package, versioned release notes, and CHANGELOG. AIWG's reference sidecar enforces this with `tools/release/verify-github-release-discussion.mjs`; `--no-mirror` is the only configured skip path.

The shipped, schema-validated reference examples are:

  • `agentic/code/frameworks/sdlc-complete/schemas/flows/examples/aiwg.release.config.yaml`
  • `agentic/code/frameworks/sdlc-complete/schemas/flows/examples/aiwg-npm.release-plan.yaml`

AIWG keeps its attached operational copies at `.aiwg/release.config` and `.aiwg/releases/aiwg-npm.yaml`. The public examples keep clean clones and CI validating the exact configuration shape even when the project artifact corpus is attached through `.aiwg-location`.