Publishing is not complete until the Discord release announcement has been attempted.
- **DO NOT stop after creating the GitHub release.**
- **DO NOT stop after drafting or applying release notes.**
- **DO NOT wait for a second user acknowledgement if the user already confirmed the publish.**
- After the release notes are finalized, immediately run Step 7.5 and post to Discord.
- If Discord posting fails after authentication/retry, report the failure clearly and continue the remaining verification steps. A skipped Discord step is a workflow failure.
If the user already confirmed the publish workflow and did not explicitly ask to review the generated changelog before release-note editing, treat the publish confirmation as sufficient acknowledgement and continue. Do not end the assistant turn here.
| **patch** | MANDATORY. Draft a concise bug-fix / change summary. Do NOT proceed without one. |
| **minor** | MANDATORY. Draft a concise feature summary. Do NOT proceed without one. |
| **major** | MANDATORY. Draft a full release narrative with migration notes if applicable. Do NOT proceed without one. |
</decision-gate>
### What You're Writing (and What You're NOT)
You are writing the **headline layer** — a product announcement that sits ABOVE the auto-generated commit log. Think "release blog post", not "git log".
<rules>
- NEVER duplicate commit messages. The auto-generated section already lists every commit.
- NEVER write generic filler like "Various bug fixes and improvements" or "Several enhancements".
- ALWAYS focus on USER IMPACT: what can users DO now that they couldn't before?
- ALWAYS group by THEME or CAPABILITY, not by commit type (feat/fix/refactor).
- ALWAYS use concrete language: "You can now do X" not "Added X feature".
</rules>
<examples>
<bad title="Commit regurgitation — DO NOT do this">
## What's New
- feat(auth): add JWT refresh token rotation
- fix(auth): handle expired token edge case
- refactor(auth): extract middleware
</bad>
<good title="User-impact narrative — DO this">
## 🔐 Smarter Authentication
Token refresh is now automatic and seamless. Sessions no longer expire mid-task — the system silently rotates credentials in the background. If you've been frustrated by random logouts, this release fixes that.
</good>
<bad title="Vague filler — DO NOT do this">
## Improvements
- Various performance improvements
- Bug fixes and stability enhancements
</bad>
<good title="Specific and measurable — DO this">
## ⚡ 3x Faster Rule Parsing
Rules are now cached by file modification time. If your project has 50+ rule files, you'll notice startup is noticeably faster — we measured a 3x improvement in our test suite.
</good>
</examples>
### Drafting Process
1.**Analyze** the commit list from Step 5's preview. Identify 2-5 themes that matter to users.
2.**Write** the summary to `/tmp/release-summary-v${NEW_VERSION}.md`.
3.**Present** the draft to the user for review and approval before applying.
> "Here's the release summary I drafted. This will appear AT THE TOP of the release notes, above the auto-generated commit changelog and contributor thanks. Want me to adjust anything before applying?"
If the user already confirmed the publish workflow and did not explicitly request a release-note review hold, proceed to Step 7 after presenting the draft. Do not stop before Step 7.5, because the Discord announcement is mandatory.
After the release notes are finalized, post them to the Discord channel. This step is mandatory for every publish run.
<hard-gate>
The workflow is not complete until this step has either:
1. Sent a Discord message successfully and recorded the message ID, or
2. Failed after `agent-discord auth extract` plus one send retry, with the failure reported to the user.
Never skip this step because the release summary was awaiting approval. If the user already confirmed the publish, continue through Discord before stopping.
2.**Read recent messages** in the channel to match the existing announcement style:
```bash
agent-discord message list 1454708427392680067 --limit 5
```
3. Post the release announcement to channel `1454708427392680067` matching the style of previous announcements. The message should follow this structure: