[Marius Storhaug (MariusStorhaug)]

Release guidance uses .github/release.settings.yml and keys release branches by the type they publish. The configurable DefaultBump policy, supported caller overrides, and explicit owned-label precedence stay intact: a valid effective default supplies a compatible bump without a label on every PR.

This is documentation delivery, not a producer runtime upgrade. No live caller input, consumer installation, tag or artifact changes because of this PR. Authors and implementation owners adopt the protocol below through a verified compatible producer; an older implementation does not gain new settings or label support from these docs.

Changed: Default release policy and explicit overrides are unambiguous

DefaultBump accepts patch, minor or major, with shared patch as the documented default. Repository settings override it; explicitly supplied supported caller overrides win for the invocation; one owned bump label overrides the valid effective setting. Omitted inputs preserve repository policy. Invalid supplied values and conflicting signals fail before build even when another input supplies a level. The producer documents its actual caller surface; this PR does not approve an undecided runtime interface. This policy is retained from the reconciled main baseline; the remaining scoped changes are the keyed routes and filename described below.

The owned set is release:patch, release:minor, release:major, release:prerelease and release:skip. Prerelease uses the resolved bump; skip alone validates without a bump/publication. Multiple bumps and skip combined with another owned signal fail; bare/unrelated labels do not select a level. Only eligible artifact-affecting changes on managed routes publish, and authors verify compatibility against the complete change rather than treating a default as evidence.

Implementation owners replace the boolean patch-policy concept with a deliberate supported level. Do not translate a disabled boolean into false, null or an empty default. The compatible producer's record owns exact old-to-new input/label actions, prerequisites, ordering and verification. Consumers retain an older interface until those instructions and a compatible implementation or adapter exist. This documentation requires no executable migration of its own.

Verify actual managed routes, including native producers, and their immutable setting/label mapping. An ignored skip cannot pass finalization. Unmanaged routes have no decision block, release labels or missing-decision check; continuous delivery alone does not opt them in. This repository only deploys Pages without a versioned release artifact, so this PR has neither release metadata nor labels.

Technical details

Changed surface	Standards checked	Framework docs checked	Result
Release Management spec/design/index	Specification/design separation, Markdown	Effective sources, eligible publication, source-bound evidence	Aligned
PR Format and Automation Labels	Canonical format, namespace ownership	Actual routes and verified producer mapping	Aligned
VS Code framework spec/design and Natural Language examples	Owning framework/coding standards	Shared resolver, mapped native build identity, actionable errors	Aligned

Prior-candidate validation, not current-head evidence: e2e4b7d428badfce35e6511afd6aaedb77280613 passed Lint, Test, Build, Links and Cross-repository links, local complete Markdown/index/link validation, seven cross-repository links, all 64 Pester tests in six suites, the pinned Zensical build, and patch checks. The current candidate and its new validation are recorded in the filename section below.

Prior complete review disposition: 5723060562 is COMMENTED with no open issues/inline feedback but retains a generic human-assessment warning about skip/default paths. The full summary was read, not treated as approval. It names no reproducible location or counterexample after the concrete findings were fixed. Per the agreed non-actionable disposition, nineteen anonymous written-contract cases were checked on that prior candidate:

Cases checked	Verified outcome
Omitted settings; each patch/minor/major effective default without labels	Shared patch or the valid selected level; no bump label required.
Supported caller override and each explicit patch/minor/major label override	Narrower supported input wins, then the single explicit label.
Skip alone	Validation/no release; no bump required.
Skip with a bump or prerelease; multiple bump labels	Conflicting-signal error.
Invalid default despite explicit bump, skip or a valid narrower caller	Error before resolution; no masking or fallback.
Prerelease with default or explicit bump	Resolved level in prerelease mode.
Bare/unrelated labels	Ignored; they do not supply a bump.
Unmanaged route	No decision metadata, release labels or missing-decision check.

The cases verify the written rule ordering, not a producer resolver implementation. No contradictory outcome was found, all concrete review threads had fix-linked replies and were resolved, and the generic allegation was recorded as non-actionable rather than guessed into code. The review's human-assessment caution remains for reviewers; no independent approval or governance waiver is claimed. A review of that older source is not a review of the new candidate.

Only the scoped delivery Task was fully satisfied by the prior convergence sweep covering releases/defaults, labels/types, framework, workflow, templates and consumer guidance. Producer/runtime migration, publication, date strategies and history/fleet cleanup remain outside scope. Native prerequisite #166 is completed; the current exact required-check rule remains enforced.

Related references

• Resolves MSXOrg/docs#225
• References MSXOrg/docs#209
• References MSXOrg/docs#208
• References MSXOrg/docs#166

Changed: Keyed routes reuse the complete canonical authoring contract

ReleaseType is keyed by Stable, Prerelease and ReleaseCandidate, with one Branch per type. Stable defaults to the repository default branch; the others are optional. Unknown keys, duplicate assignments and a branch in several types fail. Candidate routing is a setting, not another release label. Preserve intended names and verify producer support before changing a live caller; this delivery executes no branch/runtime migration. A release candidate remains a prerelease publication, not a third semantic-version mode.

All overlapping format/routing pages reuse the complete landed canonical content. Authors use a reader-facing title, one summary boundary, ordered non-empty classifiers, result-scoped actions/evidence/references and actual-route conditional decisions. Internal-only work retains its summary/supporting-block exception. Convergence scope/outcome and implementation progress remain required; resource docs show current usage while release records own transitions. Contribution guidance and thin skills point to the actual PR-record procedure and complete description example; no PR-template file is stored, inherited, distributed, or generated.

# .github/release.settings.yml
DefaultBump: patch
ReleaseType:
  Stable:
    Branch: main
  Prerelease:
    Branch: dev
  ReleaseCandidate:
    Branch: rc

Technical details

Changed surface	Standards checked	Framework docs checked	Result
Keyed routes and candidate paths	YAML examples, documented validation	Release Management stable authority	Aligned
Contribution guide; contribution/workflow, Implement/Review, readiness, repository, README and branching	Ways of Working, PR Format, Markdown	Shared finalization/routing	Aligned
Fleet, Documentation Model and Ways of Working index	Native linking, ownership, generated indexes	Sufficient source-bound history	Aligned
Dependency/Actions guidance; Dependency Updates spec/design; Merge Automation design	Owning standards/capabilities	Conditional decisions	Aligned
VS Code framework references; Continuous Delivery and Release	Owning framework/process	Authoritative resolver and managed effective policy	Aligned

The complete PR-record contract and native/manual link discovery remain aligned. Discovery combines fully paginated closing references and current connect/disconnect associations, deduplicates by PR node ID and retains merged records. Prior live schema/queries and anonymous folding cases passed. Canonical/native versions resolve before Build; the mapped native version is stamped, the same VSIX stays unchanged, and its canonical release records the mapping.

Landed #209 was incorporated from actual main aa9b5cecc69f4cbe6aa04a5dd70ff9cdadeeac3d in ordinary merge commit ce9ca5134d2cd19847cb46c40ee42a6d8062fc0c; none of its complete release-range-first, PR-record, or no-template-file contracts was replaced with an older scaffold. The original keyed-branch and prerelease/candidate sections remain unchanged from this branch's filename commit. #208 and the canonical filename delivery #233 remain separate. Remaining proposals land one at a time, with each surviving branch reconciled against actual advanced main and CI/full review repeated. No PR merge, retarget, replacement, history amendment, or auto-merge was performed.

Changed: Release settings guidance has one canonical filename

Use .github/release.settings.yml when authoring optional repository settings under the canonical Release Management protocol. The .github directory, setting names and values, shared defaults, supported caller overrides, explicit-label precedence, applicability, and required decision validation are unchanged by this filename revision. Current rendered guidance teaches only the requested filename.

No matching settings file or runtime loader exists in this documentation repository, so no real configuration file, alias, or fallback loader is created. Released producer interfaces remain unchanged, including ConfigurationFile / .github/auto-release.yml and SettingsPath / PSModule.yml. Verify a compatible producer's declared contract before changing an actual consumer configuration; this documentation does not grant an older producer support for a different path.

Technical details

Current candidate: ce9ca5134d2cd19847cb46c40ee42a6d8062fc0c, pushed on default-release-bump targeting main. Its parents are filename-only commit 89456f4d4c771232e1d3d4d0b9c1b7f674357dd4 and actual main aa9b5cecc69f4cbe6aa04a5dd70ff9cdadeeac3d. The branch contains that latest base, has no unresolved conflicts, and is zero commits behind it.

The regression-first filename commit changes exactly 16 references across five owned pages, with all other normalized documentation content identical to its e2e4b7d predecessor. Mainline reconciliation adds one already-landed applicability reference, producing the canonical 17-reference composition. Read-only verification against #233's immutable e65b9e0125d418852a993282e2b4cd5125f16d3a confirms all 17 substitutions; PR Format and Automation Labels match exactly, the complete release-note and release-evidence sections match exactly, and the remaining release/framework differences are this delivery's retained default-bump/keyed-route scope. No unmerged change from that separate delivery was imported.

Changed surface	Filename references	Standards checked	Framework docs checked	Result
Release Management design	9	Documentation Model, Natural Language, Markdown	Settings/default/override and keyed-route contract	Aligned
Release Management spec	3	Specification separation, Natural Language, Markdown	Applicability, effective defaults, complete release evidence	Aligned
VS Code framework design	2	Documentation Model, Natural Language, Markdown	Shared resolver and configuration surface	Aligned
Automation Labels	1	Namespace ownership, Natural Language, Markdown	Effective release applicability	Aligned
PR Format	2	PR-record procedure, Natural Language, Markdown	Release-range-first and conditional decisions	Aligned
Release settings regression suite	5 cases	PowerShell, Testing, repository analyzer settings	Canonical documentation filename	Aligned

All five new filename cases failed before documentation edits and pass after the revision. The reconciled candidate passes all 85 Pester tests in eight suites, PowerShell lint for the new suite, explicit Markdown lint across all 128 rendered/contribution pages, documentation index validation, relative links across 127 pages, all seven cross-repository links, patch checks, and a clean build with pinned Zensical 0.0.59. The pinned build tool was restored only in an isolated session environment; the shared 0.0.50 installation and dependency manifests were not changed.

All five required current-head contexts succeed in Docs and Cross-repository links: Lint, Build, Test, Links, and Cross-repository links. The PR-only Publish job is skipped as intended; no documentation deployment or release publication was triggered.

Current complete review disposition: 5728271684 is COMMENTED on ce9ca5134d2cd19847cb46c40ee42a6d8062fc0c, with one inline allegation that Windows-style paths make every filename case fail on Ubuntu. Both its complete summary and inline text were read. The exact-head Ubuntu 24.04 Test job discovers this suite and shows all five filename cases passing, with 85 total tests and none skipped. The provider-backed Join-Path/Get-Content implementation was retained; the evidence-linked reply explains the false positive and resolves it. A complete native read-back finds no unresolved review threads. This is convergence on substance after an evidence-based dismissal, not a zero-comment or approving review; the prior human-assessment caution remains.

The Task #225 filename plan records the regression-first edit, completed mainline/shared-page reconciliation, exact-head validation, and review disposition. The final scoped convergence search covered open issues naming the filename and DefaultBump: #225 is this delivery; #232 remains the separate canonical filename Task; #203 remains the broader consumer-upgrade procedure/gate delivery. No additional closing link or issue-body change is claimed for those separate scopes.

Existing human/source/lineage/prerequisite holds remain in force. Native Agent merge is maintenance-only: enabled=true, address_reviews=true, fix_ci=true, resolve_conflicts=true, merge_pr=false; GitHub autoMergeRequest is null. PR draft state and target are unchanged. This revision authorizes no runtime, publishing, package, governance, label, or pin mutation.

Related references

• References MSXOrg/docs#233
• References MSXOrg/docs#232

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates the MSX documentation set to introduce a configurable repository-wide default semantic version bump (DefaultBump) for release automation, while keeping owned release:* labels as explicit overrides and updating prerelease semantics to reuse the resolved bump.

Changes:

• Define DefaultBump (defaulting to patch) and the override / conflict rules in Release Management spec + design.
• Update Ways of Working guidance (PR format, CD/release, branching/promotion, automation labels) to reflect “policy-first” bump selection and prerelease behavior.
• Align the VS Code Extension Framework spec/design with the Release Management contract.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/docs/Ways-of-Working/PR-Format.md	Documents how release:pre-release interacts with DefaultBump and owned bump-label overrides.
src/docs/Ways-of-Working/Continuous-Delivery-And-Release.md	Updates CD/release “decision at the gate” language to reference resolved release policy and DefaultBump.
src/docs/Ways-of-Working/Branching-and-Merging.md	Updates promotion-model guidance to use the resolved policy / DefaultBump with explicit overrides.
src/docs/Ways-of-Working/Automation-Labels.md	Reframes label meanings around DefaultBump + owned label overrides and conflict handling.
src/docs/Coding-Standards/Natural-Language.md	Updates example language/error-message guidance to reflect conflicting owned bump labels and DefaultBump.
src/docs/Capabilities/vscode-extension-framework/spec.md	Updates framework requirements/success criteria to match policy-driven bump selection.
src/docs/Capabilities/vscode-extension-framework/design.md	Updates pipeline/design narrative to reference release policy and DefaultBump in version resolution.
src/docs/Capabilities/release-management/spec.md	Defines the normative DefaultBump rules, override precedence, prerelease behavior, and label conflict handling.
src/docs/Capabilities/release-management/index.md	Updates the section index descriptions to match the refreshed spec/design framing.
src/docs/Capabilities/release-management/design.md	Documents configuration surface and pipeline behavior for resolving DefaultBump + owned label overrides.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The documentation updates appear internally consistent across all touched pages and align with the stated DefaultBump/owned-label override/prerelease/skip contract.

Review details

• Files reviewed: 10/10 changed files
• Comments generated: 0 new
• Review effort level: Lite

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The changes are documentation-only and appear internally consistent with the new DefaultBump/ReleaseType contract, with only a minor wording nit noted.

Review details

Suppressed comments (1)

Previously missed (1) — in code that hasn't changed since the last review.

src/docs/Capabilities/release-management/spec.md:3

• The front-matter description repeats “driven” twice (“policy-driven … releases driven …”), which reads awkwardly in generated index tables and summaries. Consider rephrasing the second instance (and then regenerating the affected INDEX tables).

• Files reviewed: 10/10 changed files
• Comments generated: 0 new
• Review effort level: Lite

[Marius Storhaug (MariusStorhaug)]

Coordination for #202: I am adding incremental consumer evidence and complete-note publication rules in PR Format and the release-management spec/design. This work leaves version selection, label names, DefaultBump, and ReleaseType ownership with this PR. The release-impact record reports the effective resolver decision and its source, so it remains compatible with either merge order. I will reference this PR and will not edit its branch or description.

[Marius Storhaug (MariusStorhaug)]

Coordination from #204: the user confirmed that a release level can come from an explicit owned bump label or a repository-configured DefaultBump, but chose to fail when both are absent. The missing-decision error must also fail a required pre-merge CI check. This differs from the implicit patch fallback proposed here. I am aligning the release evidence contract and its dependent guidance in #204 with that confirmed rule, reusing the DefaultBump setting name. I am not changing this branch, its ReleaseType redesign, or its label rename; the default-fallback portion here needs reconciliation before merge to avoid restoring a conflicting rule.

[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

Human assessment is needed because the documentation contains cross-document ambiguities and contradictions about effective defaults and whether unmanaged routes may or must use release:skip.

No open issues 🎉

4 resolved since last review

• Refer to the effective default in the bump-label table
• Revalidate when supported caller inputs change
• Align the success criterion with the shared patch default
• Limit release classification to artifact-affecting PRs

_{Review effort: Lite}

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The dashboard logic omits manually linked Development pull requests, causing existing links to be reported as missing until the retrieval limitation is addressed or documented.

1 open issue

• Include manually linked Development PRs in dashboard retrieval · New

_{Review effort: Lite}

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

An active documentation inconsistency remains: the new rules are stated universally even though unmanaged routes do not use release-decision metadata, so the scope and no-metadata behavior must be clarified.

1 open issue

• Scope decision metadata and checks to managed routes · New

1 resolved since last review

• Include manually linked Development PRs in dashboard retrieval

_{Review effort: Lite}

[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

Human assessment is needed because the documentation contains subtle contract contradictions around release skips and no-label default paths that affect how managed decisions are interpreted.

No open issues 🎉

1 resolved since last review

• Scope decision metadata and checks to managed routes

_{Review effort: Lite}

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The critical documentation test suite uses backslashes that are treated literally on Ubuntu, causing every case to fail before validating filenames.

1 open issue

• Use platform-neutral path separators in Document values · New

_{Review effort: Lite}