[Marius Storhaug (MariusStorhaug)]

Release authors get documentation-guided, complete incremental upgrade records without a repository PR-template file. The guidance makes published notes the sufficient reference for what changed, why, affected uses, compatibility, and exact consumer actions or an explicit no-action result.

Use the authoring guide and canonical PR Format's in-document examples for the next release-bound PR. The optional authoring skill routes to the same evergreen sources; no Project Library plan is required. Existing consumers need no workflow, configuration, code, or invocation changes from this documentation-only PR.

New: Authors can write complete consumer upgrade records

The authoring guide applies the canonical MSX PR Format to Process-PSModule release authoring. Write the actual title and complete description directly in the pull request using the format's in-document examples. The guide is discoverable from documentation navigation, the index, versioning and configuration guides, repository-standard references, and the plugin README. The optional psmodule-release-note-authoring skill remains a thin pointer with agent-specific reporting and stop conditions, not another policy source.

For the next release-bound PR:

1. Resolve the actual published-artifact-to-candidate range using canonical PR Format's publication and immutable-source checks. Reconcile the complete delivered range, including earlier merged, skipped, or unshipped deltas. Keep the ordinary PR-base comparison separate. State verified semantic impact and applicable effective configuration; leave final numeric coordinates to the publisher.
2. Write an audience-first title and summary, retain the summary marker, and group applicable results in Breaking, Removed, New, Changed, then Fixed order. Put each result's rationale, applicability, compatibility, exact actions or explicit no-action result, prerequisites, order, verification, and necessary old-to-new examples in its reader-facing prose. Keep its implementation evidence and related references scoped to that result.
3. Keep resource documentation focused on supported current behavior, inputs, outputs, and usage. Keep release-specific transitions in the release record; preserve legitimate decision and research records. Verify that the notes contain all required upgrade instructions without requiring PR or diff inspection.

Consumers read every applicable release after their actual baseline through the target in order and compose the actions. Reading a record does not require installing that version. Later supersession instructions explain which edits remain while preserving explicitly required intermediate installations or runs. Missing required instructions are evidence gaps, not implicit no-action results. PRs and commit diffs remain optional depth.

This adds authoring guidance and an optional prompt, not release-runtime behavior. Existing release-note settings, version resolution, labels, defaults, workflows, and publisher behavior remain unchanged. No product-integration template update applies because this change does not alter a producer runtime or caller contract. No intermediate installation or consumer upgrade is required to adopt the guidance. The repository-relative guide is available in this candidate; its published-page fallback depends on normal documentation delivery and is not published by this task.

Technical details

• The exact candidate is PSModule/Process-PSModule at af22c475873b21b8afa5ba7ecb87cb2bf8efabd2. The scoped implementation comparison is against main merge base 3505ca4b68b5c79e0b2a3051d0c33f2e9b275358; it is not substituted for a published-artifact baseline.
• The correction removes the automatic PR-template file introduced in candidate 05de7ee4fa55d6032e4d469bde575e51421b0a1b, its local starting-point link, the authoring skill's template requirement, both repository-standard required-file rows, and the v8 skill's template baseline/preservation references. The complete revised Git tree contains no automatic PR-template file, and no replacement file is added.
• The canonical format owns the actual PR record. The guide owns its PSModule-specific application and short illustrative release replay. The thin skill uses the owning guide and standard, without requiring a Project Library plan or past handoff as lasting authority.
• Canonical format and documentation ownership were checked against merged MSXOrg/docs#209 at aa9b5cecc69f4cbe6aa04a5dd70ff9cdadeeac3d. Older Library scaffold-distribution proposals are not authority for this correction.
• The guide's existing release-range, audience, adoption, marker, supersession, runtime-setting, and distinct product-integration template evidence remains unchanged. The illustrative timeout walkthrough is not a change to Process-PSModule's runtime or release history.
• The existing NoRelease label is retained, with no label or publisher changes. This scoped correction does not implement or verify a shared Release Management native-producer signal mapping, required decision check, or actual publication-to-candidate provenance. The owning producer must verify those prerequisites before any release-bound finalization; native producers are not declared unmanaged merely because they do not call a named shared workflow. No unsupported release:* labels or release-decision block are added here.
• No publisher, Build, metadata, original-artifact promotion, historical release-note correction, Discord sending, or live-governance changes are included. Plugin and marketplace metadata remain unchanged.

Changed surface	Standards checked	Framework docs checked	Result
docs/content/guides/**	Canonical PR Format, Documentation Model, guide structure, Markdown, and en-US prose	Existing release-note defaults, versioning, complete authoring instructions, and illustrative replay	Aligned; local-template starting point removed
docs/content/reference/repository-standard.md	Canonical documentation and PR-record ownership	Existing module repository layout	PR-template requirements removed; authoring routes to the owning documentation
.github/plugin/**	Thin skill and plugin integration guidance	Authoring guide, plugin discoverability, and v8 baseline	Template requirements removed; guide links and metadata preserved
docs/zensical.toml, docs/content/index.md	Documentation navigation	Published documentation structure	Authoring guide remains discoverable

Validation

Command or review	Result
npx --no-install markdownlint-cli2 --config .github\linters\.markdown-lint.yml .github\plugin\README.md .github\plugin\psmodule\skills\psmodule-release-note-authoring\SKILL.md .github\plugin\psmodule\skills\psmodule-v8-upgrade\SKILL.md docs\content\guides\formatting-release-note-prs.md docs\content\guides\configuring-the-pipeline.md docs\content\guides\versioning-and-releases.md docs\content\index.md docs\content\reference\repository-standard.md	Passed: all eight candidate Markdown files, zero issues.
npm exec --offline --yes --package=textlint --package=textlint-rule-terminology --package=textlint-filter-rule-comments -- textlint --config .github\linters\.textlintrc .github\plugin\README.md .github\plugin\psmodule\skills\psmodule-release-note-authoring\SKILL.md .github\plugin\psmodule\skills\psmodule-v8-upgrade\SKILL.md docs\content\guides\formatting-release-note-prs.md docs\content\guides\configuring-the-pipeline.md docs\content\guides\versioning-and-releases.md docs\content\index.md docs\content\reference\repository-standard.md	Passed with the repository terminology configuration.
Set-Location .\docs; zensical build --clean	Passed: complete site build, no issues. This does not publish the site.
Get-Content -Raw -LiteralPath .github\plugin\psmodule\plugin.json | ConvertFrom-Json | Out-Null and Get-Content -Raw -LiteralPath .github\plugin\marketplace.json | ConvertFrom-Json | Out-Null	Passed: both manifests parse; their committed content is unchanged.
git --no-pager diff --check 3505ca4b68b5c79e0b2a3051d0c33f2e9b275358..HEAD	Passed for the full revised candidate.
Complete candidate-tree scan using git ls-tree -r --name-only HEAD	Passed: the no-file assertion failed on the earlier candidate and passes on af22c475873b21b8afa5ba7ecb87cb2bf8efabd2; no automatic PR-template file remains.
Relative-link and preservation checks	Passed: all 10 relative links in the authoring skill, guide, and plugin README resolve. Existing authoring requirements, replay, product-integration evidence, runtime/settings, workflows/actions, and plugin metadata are preserved.
Full local diff and standards review	Passed: the correction is limited to the automatic file and its dependent documentation/prompt references; no new policy copy, marketplace, or runtime surface is introduced.
gh pr checks 537 --repo PSModule/Process-PSModule --watch --interval 10 --fail-fast	Passed on the revised head: documentation Build, documentation Lint, repository Lint, and CodeQL checks succeeded; publication was skipped.
Fresh full Copilot review on af22c475873b21b8afa5ba7ecb87cb2bf8efabd2	Identified stale template references in the earlier PR description, not a remaining source file. This description and validation table correct that feedback; follow-up review verifies the corrected record.

The illustrative content walkthrough reads the breaking v2.0.0 timeout-key transition and no-action v2.0.1 record from baseline v1.4.2. A consumer with timeout: 20 composes the notes, changes it to timeoutSeconds: 20 with the target upgrade, selects v2.0.1 directly, and verifies accepted configuration and timeout cancellation. A consumer omitting the key retains the 30-second default; a consumer already on v2.0.0 needs no configuration edit. No intermediate installation or PR/diff lookup is required. These are fictional published coordinates and a content check, not executed product tests or repository release history.

PowerShell/Pester tests, release publishers, and actual consumer upgrades were not run because this PR changes documentation and authoring prompts only. Publication-baseline and native-producer integration verification remain the owning publisher's separate prerequisites, not completed work in this correction.

Related references

• References MSXOrg/docs#202.
• References MSXOrg/docs#209.
• References MSX PR Format.

[github-actions]

Super-linter summary

Language	Validation result
CHECKOV	Pass ✅
CSS	Pass ✅
CSS_PRETTIER	Pass ✅
GITHUB_ACTIONS	Pass ✅
GITHUB_ACTIONS_ZIZMOR	Pass ✅
GITLEAKS	Pass ✅
GIT_MERGE_CONFLICT_MARKERS	Pass ✅
HTML	Pass ✅
JAVASCRIPT_ES	Pass ✅
JAVASCRIPT_PRETTIER	Pass ✅
MARKDOWN	Pass ✅
NATURAL_LANGUAGE	Pass ✅
POWERSHELL	Pass ✅
PRE_COMMIT	Pass ✅
SPELL_CODESPELL	Pass ✅
TRIVY	Pass ✅
YAML	Pass ✅

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[Copilot]

🟢 Approved

The release-note authoring guidance and scaffolding have no active review issues.

No open issues 🎉

What changed in this PR

Adds guidance and authoring scaffolding for self-contained, incremental release notes in Process-PSModule. This documentation-only change leaves workflows, version resolution, labels, and publisher behavior unchanged.

Changes:

• Defines how authors document baselines, consumer impact, exact upgrade actions, and verification.
• Adds a PR template and thin authoring skill that point to the shared guidance.
• Connects the guide to documentation navigation, references, and release-note examples.

File	Description
docs/​zensical.toml	Adds the authoring guide to navigation.
docs/​content/​reference/​repository-standard.md	Updates PR-template descriptions and links to the guide.
docs/​content/​index.md	Adds the guide to the documentation index.
docs/​content/​guides/​versioning-and-releases.md	Explains composing release records for upgrades.
docs/​content/​guides/​formatting-release-note-prs.md	Defines the authoring contract and illustrative upgrade replay.
docs/​content/​guides/​configuring-the-pipeline.md	Updates the release-note example and links to the contract.
.github/​PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md	Adds classified results, upgrade instructions, and scoped evidence scaffolding.
.github/​plugin/​README.md	Introduces the release-note authoring skill.
.github/​plugin/​psmodule/​skills/​psmodule-release-note-authoring/​SKILL.md	Adds guide links and agent handoff and stop conditions.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The PR description and validation table reference a missing PR-template file, conflicting with the guide’s actual entry points and potentially misdirecting authors.

1 open issue

• PR description points to a missing pull request template · New

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[Copilot]

🟢 Approved

No active review issues are reported for this documentation-only change.

No open issues 🎉

1 resolved since last review

• PR description points to a missing pull request template

_{Review effort: Balanced}