Release Orchestrator Skill for Claude

Release Orchestrator

The agent runs pre-flight validation, generates changelogs from conventional commits, auto-bumps semantic versions, and scores deployment readiness with a GO/CONDITIONAL/NO-GO decision.

Core Capabilities

• Pre-flight validation — 7 automated checks: branch sync, merge conflicts, dirty tree, secret scanning (AWS/GCP/GitHub/Stripe/JWT), gitignore coverage, conventional commits, dependency lock consistency.
• Version management — auto-detect semver bump (PATCH/MINOR/MAJOR) from commit history across package.json, pyproject.toml, Cargo.toml, etc.; pre-release tags (--pre alpha|beta|rc).
• Changelog generation — Keep a Changelog markdown grouped by type (Added/Changed/Fixed/Security/Breaking) with hashes and @author attribution.
• Deployment readiness — weighted score across 7 categories (Tests, Code Quality, Docs, Security, Breaking Changes, Dependencies, Rollback) → GO (80+) / CONDITIONAL (60-79) / NO-GO (<60), with single-category blocker at <40.
• End-to-end pipeline — chain all tools non-interactively; blocks on pre-flight failure, test failure, or NO-GO. CI/CD steps and pre-push git hook provided.
• Release types — hotfix, patch, minor, major, and pre-release flows with branch patterns and bump rules.

When to Use

• Running pre-release validation or gating a release with secret scanning and GO/NO-GO checks.
• Generating a changelog from conventional commits before tagging.
• Auto-bumping a semantic version from commit history.
• Scoring deployment readiness across tests, quality, security, and rollback.
• Wiring release validation into a CI/CD pipeline or pre-push hook.

Clarify First

Before orchestrating the release, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• [ ] Base branch & ref range — what HEAD is compared against (drives pre-flight branch-sync and the changelog --from/--to)
• [ ] Release type — hotfix / patch / minor / major / pre-release (sets the branch pattern and bump rule)
• [ ] Gate strictness — block on CONDITIONAL (60-79) or only on NO-GO (<60) (decides whether the pipeline halts)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Tools

| Tool | Purpose | Command |

|------|---------|---------|

| preflight_checker.py | Run 7 pre-release checks (sync, conflicts, secrets, commits, deps) | python scripts/preflight_checker.py --repo . --base main --json |

| changelog_generator.py | Generate Keep a Changelog markdown from a ref range | python scripts/changelog_generator.py --repo . --from v1.2.0 --to HEAD --output CHANGELOG.md |

| version_bumper.py | Auto-detect next semver from commits; write version files | python scripts/version_bumper.py --repo . --dry-run --json |

| release_readiness_scorer.py | Score readiness 0-100 with GO/CONDITIONAL/NO-GO decision | python scripts/release_readiness_scorer.py --input release_data.json --json |

All tools support --json for machine output. Exit code 0 = pass, 1 = fail (CI-friendly).

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/release-workflows-and-operations.md — quick-start commands, the three core workflows (pre-flight, version/changelog, readiness) with their checkpoint tables, the end-to-end pipeline script, release-type matrix, CI/CD integration YAML, anti-patterns, and the troubleshooting table. Read when running or chaining any workflow.
• references/release_engineering_guide.md — release strategies (rolling, blue-green, canary) and release engineering practice. Read when choosing a deployment strategy.
• references/rollback_strategies.md — database migration rollbacks, reversible-migration rules, and rollback playbooks. Read when planning the rollback portion of a release.
• references/ci_cd_best_practices.md — pipeline design patterns (stage-gate, fan-out/fan-in) and CI/CD best practices. Read when designing the surrounding pipeline.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers: pre-flight validation, semantic version bumping, changelog generation, deployment-readiness scoring, and gating releases with GO/NO-GO decisions for git + conventional-commits projects.

This skill does NOT cover: the actual deploy/orchestration execution (handled by senior-devops / devops-workflow-engineer), test authoring (senior-qa), or deep security scanning beyond secret pattern-matching (senior-secops).

Integration Points

| Skill | Integration |

|-------|-------------|

| senior-devops | Pipeline stages consume pre-flight and readiness JSON as gates |

| senior-qa | Test results feed Tests category (25% weight) |

| senior-secops | Secret scan and CVE counts feed Security category (15%) |

| code-reviewer | Code quality metrics feed Code Quality category (20%) |

| devops-workflow-engineer | Workflow YAML calls tools as pipeline steps |