fix(release): ship workflow changes by releasing ci/build/refactor

[devantler]

🤖 Generated by the Daily AI Assistant

Problem

This repo's reusable workflows are its product, but the release config only ships a subset of the changes consumers depend on.

.releaserc uses @semantic-release/commit-analyzer with default (angular) rules, under which only feat: (minor) and fix:/perf: (patch) cut a release. Workflow-changing commit types — ci:, build:, refactor: — produce no release, so the change lands on main but is never tagged, and consumers pinned to a tag (e.g. @v5.3.0) never inherit it.

Concrete evidence — govulncheck is stranded right now

#266 (ci(security): add govulncheck supply-chain scanning to validate-go-project) was promoted and merged to main (aead873) specifically to give every Go consumer supply-chain scanning. But the 🎉 Create Release run on that commit reported:

[@semantic-release/commit-analyzer] ℹ Analysis of 4 commits complete: no release
ℹ There are no relevant changes, so no new version is released.

No v5.4.0 was cut — latest release is still v5.3.0 (2026-05-29, pre-merge). So validate-go-project.yaml's new govulncheck job exists on main but no consumer will ever run it (ksail pins @v5.3.0, go-template inherits the same way). The promoted PR's value is silently lost.

Fix

Add releaseRules to commit-analyzer so the workflow-changing types trigger a patch release:

{ "type": "ci",       "release": "patch" }
{ "type": "build",    "release": "patch" }
{ "type": "refactor", "release": "patch" }

Custom releaseRules are evaluated before the defaults and are purely additive — feat:→minor, fix:/perf:→patch, revert:→patch all still apply, and chore:/docs:/test:/style: still correctly don't release. Rationale: in this repo, a ci:/build:/refactor: change is a change to the shipped product, so it must reach consumers; an occasional no-op patch (consumer renovate bumps the pin) is far cheaper than silently stranding a feature.

Self-completing: once merged, the next Create Release run analyses all commits since v5.3.0 — including the stranded ci(security) govulncheck commit — and (with these rules) cuts the patch release that finally ships govulncheck. The PR title is fix(...) so the release fires regardless.

Also updates AGENTS.md rule 6 to document exactly which commit types release (was ambiguous — it listed chore:/ci: "for semantic-release" though neither released).

Validation

• .releaserc is valid JSON (python3 -m json.tool).
• releaseRules semantics confirmed against semantic-release docs (custom rules first, then defaults; additive).
• Docs kept in sync in the same PR.

Trade-offs / notes

• ci: also covers this repo's own meta-CI (e.g. sync-labels); those will now cut a harmless patch. Acceptable — under-releasing strands consumer-facing features (the bug above); over-releasing only adds a no-op tag.
• If the maintainer prefers ci: stay non-releasing and instead wants workflow changes authored as feat:/fix:, that's an alternative — but it relies on author discipline and wouldn't recover the already-merged govulncheck commit.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates the repository’s semantic-release configuration so that workflow-impacting conventional commit types (ci:, build:, refactor:) produce a patch release, ensuring reusable workflow changes are actually shipped to tag-pinned consumers.

Changes:

• Configure @semantic-release/commit-analyzer with releaseRules to release patch for ci, build, and refactor commit types.
• Update AGENTS.md to document which conventional commit types trigger releases.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
.releaserc	Adds releaseRules so workflow-changing commit types cut patch releases.
AGENTS.md	Updates contributor guidance to reflect release-triggering commit types.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

[botantler]

🎉 This PR is included in version 5.3.1 🎉

The release is available on GitHub release

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