Release Management

The ORS release workflow — when and how to bump versions, what goes in changelogs, how the marketplace.json is updated, and the criteria for graduating a skill from beta to stable.

When to use

Bumping a skill's version field after an edit.
Releasing a new ORS package version (v0.X.Y).
Updating the marketplace manifest.
Deciding whether a change is a patch, minor, or major bump.
Closing out a milestone that spans many skills.

When NOT to use

Adding a new skill from scratch (use meta/roadmap-author).
Auditing a skill for content issues (use meta/integrity-audit).
Validating the local tree (use scripts/validate-skills.py).

Hard rules

No fabricated citations. Every cited work must resolve to a verifiable record (DOI, PMID, arXiv ID, ISBN, URL with retrieval date, or stable identifier). If a source cannot be resolved, the skill must say so explicitly rather than presenting the claim as established.
No claim without provenance. Every quantitative or factual claim must point to a file, line, table, figure, dataset, or external source the agent can show. "Trust me" is not provenance.
No silent failure. Every script invocation, API call, or tool use must declare its exit status and what to do on non-zero. A skill that silently swallows errors is a violation.

Semver for skills

ORS uses Semantic Versioning per-skill AND for the package as a whole.

Per-skill semver (in `` block)

Bump	When
patch (1.0.X)	Typos, broken links, single-line clarifications, no content change
minor (1.X.0)	New domain rule, new code pattern, new tool, new section
major (X.0.0)	Incompatible change — slug rename, schema change, removed feature

Rule: A change to the description field is always at least a minor bump, because it changes the trigger surface that Claude uses to decide whether to load the skill.

Rule: A change to the category field is always major — it moves the skill in the catalog and breaks cross-references that hardcoded the category.

Package semver (root `marketplace.json`)

Bump	When
patch (0.0.X)	Bug fixes, validation-script fixes, doc clarifications
minor (0.X.0)	New skill added, meta skill added, schema extension (additive only)
major (X.0.0)	Schema break, removed skill, mandatory migration of existing skills

The release workflow

For each release:

Identify the changes. Run git diff --stat <previous-tag>..HEAD to see what changed. Group changes by skill.
Decide the bumps. Apply the semver table above to each skill. Decide the package bump from the highest individual bump plus the overall schema impact.
Update each affected SKILL.md. Bump version in the metadata block, prepend an entry to ## Changelog. The changelog entry must be one-line and concrete: "Added ## Pitfalls section listing 5 common errors", not "Various improvements".
Update marketplace.json. Bump version at the package level. Add the new/changed skills to the plugins array. Verify the JSON schema matches the latest Claude Code marketplace spec.
Run the full validator. python scripts/validate-skills.py skills/ must exit 0 across the entire repo. If it fails, the release is blocked.
Run the integrity audit. Load meta/integrity-audit and run it on every changed SKILL.md. Any FAIL blocks the release.
Tag the release. git tag -a v0.X.Y -m "<summary>". Push tags: git push origin v0.X.Y.
Refresh the README. If the package version, total skill count, or top-level structure changed, update the README counts and the "What's new" section.

Changelog discipline

Changelog entries must be:

Concrete — "Added ## Pitfalls section with 5 entries" not "Improvements".
One line per change — easier to scan, easier to bisect.
In past tense — "Added", "Fixed", "Changed", "Removed".
Tagged with category — optional but recommended for package-level changelogs (skill, schema, validator, docs).

Bad:

- 1.1.0 — Various improvements

Good:

- **1.1.0** (2026-06-17) — Added `## Pitfalls` section with 5 entries;
  fixed broken DOI for Smith 2023; clarified `oversight` guidance.

Graduation criteria (v0.X.Y → v1.0.0)

ORS graduates to v1.0.0 when:

Schema has been stable for 30 days with no breaking changes proposed.
Validator passes cleanly on the full 100+ skill catalog.
At least one reference skill per category has been published (skills/<category>/<skill>/SKILL.md with full v0.4.0 conformance).
All 5 meta skills are present and stable.
README has a complete "How to use" section with a real example.
A showcase example (load 3 skills in sequence to do a real task) is documented and reproducible.
Marketplace.json validates against the Claude Code schema.

Breaking-change protocol

If a release requires existing skills to change (e.g. a schema extension that mandates new fields):

Co-write the migration script. Add scripts/migrate-vX-to-vY.py.
Run on a copy first. Verify the script is idempotent and produces no regressions in python scripts/validate-skills.py.
Document in the changelog. "BREAKING: X changed; run python scripts/migrate-vX-to-vY.py skills/ to upgrade."
Run on main. Commit the migration + the schema change in a single atomic commit so users can bisect.
Tag clearly. git tag -a vX.Y.0 -m "BREAKING: ...".

Cross-references

roadmap-author — produces new skills; use this skill to release them.
integrity-audit — final-pass check before any release.
cross-reference-mapper — verify xref slugs before tagging.

Changelog

1.0.0 (2026-06-17) — Initial release. Distilled from the v0.2.0 → v0.4.0 migration experience and the ARS-comparison release workflow.