Release Kit

A canonical release workflow: one technology-agnostic method, per-technology bindings, and the rk CLI that carries and lands both.

What this is

Two products in one repository. The method is what a reader loads: method/ states the five-stage spine, the invariants, and the recovery paths, and bindings/ states where rust, python, and bash differ. The distribution is what a project installs: the rk binary, built from src/, embeds the whole payload — the method, the bindings, the landable files under snippets/, the agent skills, and the pinned-tool registry — and lands the deterministic files with rk init.

The design in one sentence: work integrates on one trunk, a bot maintains one release pull request that bumps the version and the changelog, and merging it is the release that tags, publishes, and builds the artifacts.

Install

cargo install release-kit

The binary is rk.

Quick paths

• Read the method: method/README.md, or rk method --list anywhere.
• Read a technology binding: bindings/, or rk binding rust.
• Land the workflow in a project: rk init --tech rust --target . previews; --apply writes the files and the landing record.
• Ask a landed project about itself: rk status, with --check for a CI gate; take a newer payload with rk upgrade; record a pre-record project with rk adopt.
• See the pinned tools and their freshness: rk versions, and rk versions --check to compare each pin upstream.
• Prove what the binary carries: rk payload, with --json for the machine form.
• Check the host and load the whole surface: rk doctor and rk usage.
• Install the agent skills at user scope: rk skill install previews; --apply writes ~/.claude/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/, plus what they share at ~/.local/state/release-kit/skills/shared/.
• Follow the recipe: rk guide setup once per repository, rk guide release for every release, rk guide backport for an older line.
• Execute the repository-side setup: rk setup --target . previews; --apply runs; rk setup check proves it.
• Read a forge's specifics: rk forge github or rk forge gitlab.
• Audit what a setup run did: rk runs list and rk runs show <id>.
• Release this repository itself: rk guide carries the procedure; _docs/guides/release/ carries this repository's coordinates over it.

This repository dogfoods its own convention. The procedure lives in the shipped runbooks, served by rk guide; _docs/guides/release/ is this repository's overlay — the coordinates to export once, its deviations, and the transcript of a release cut end to end.

License

The method is under CC BY 4.0 and the distribution that lands it is under the MIT License. LICENSE states which side each file falls on, and rk license prints the terms the binary carries.