deploy
This skill automates the complete release process for Agent Sessions, including version bumping, changelog updates, macOS app signing and notarization, appcast publishing, and GitHub release creation. Use it when shipping a new Agent Sessions release after confirming the target version, changelog entries, and any required documentation updates with the user.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jazzyalex/agent-sessions /tmp/deploy && cp -r /tmp/deploy/.claude/skills/deploy ~/.claude/skills/deploySKILL.md
# Deployment Skill (Agent Sessions)
This skill is an agent-facing entrypoint that avoids duplicating the deployment runbook.
## Canonical Sources (Single Source of Truth)
- Runbook: `docs/deployment.md`
- Unified tool: `tools/release/deploy` (see `tools/release/deploy --help`)
- Recommended pre-release QA checklist: `docs/release/pre-release-qa.md`
If anything here disagrees with the runbook, follow `docs/deployment.md`.
## Workspace Policy (Hard Rule)
- Always run deployment from the user's current local repository checkout.
- Do not clone to temporary directories and do not switch to alternate worktrees as a deployment workaround.
- If the local worktree is dirty, stop and tell the user to clean the tree first (commit, stash, or discard), then continue in the same local repo.
## QA Gate (Mandatory — Run Automatically Before Deploy)
- **Always run QA automatically** before any bump/release/verify step, unless the user explicitly says to skip it (e.g. "skip QA", "no QA").
- Do not ask whether to run QA — just run it.
- QA execution order:
1. **Scope** — `git log --oneline --decorate -n 30` and `git diff --name-only <LAST_TAG>..HEAD`; identify high-risk areas.
2. **Build** — `xcodebuild -project AgentSessions.xcodeproj -scheme AgentSessions -configuration Debug build`
3. **Full test suite** — `./scripts/xcode_test_stable.sh`
4. **Targeted tests** — run suites for touched high-risk areas (session parsing, usage tracking, onboarding, etc.)
5. **Warnings sweep** — flag any new actionable warnings in build output.
6. **Manual smoke reminder** — list the manual steps from `docs/release/pre-release-qa.md` §3–4 and ask the user to confirm GO/NO-GO after completing them.
- If automated gates fail → stop, report failure, do not proceed to bump/release.
- If user says "skip QA" or "no QA" → proceed without running, note it was skipped.
**Test count.** QA reads the authoritative pass count from the `.xcresult` bundle (stdout
reports per-bundle totals and this scheme has two — it under-reports) and compares it to
`tools/release/test-count-baseline.txt`. A drop **warns and continues**, deliberately: it
does not block a release. So the warning has to actually be read — a deleted suite still
exits 0 from xcodebuild, and this line is the only thing that says so. When the count
changes for a real reason, update the baseline file in the same release.
## Before Starting (Ask the User)
1. Target version (`X.Y` for major/minor releases, `X.Y.Z` only for patch releases; never ship `X.Y.0`)
2. Any headline changes (new agents, major features) that must be reflected in `docs/CHANGELOG.md`
3. Whether this is a major release that requires onboarding updates
4. Public copy updates needed for README/GitHub Pages (major changes to highlight, renamed features, or outdated wording to fix)
**Do NOT ask about QA status** — QA always runs automatically as part of pre-deploy (see QA Gate above).
## Public Copy Update (Required for All Releases)
### Always update (every release)
- `README.md` download link: `v{VERSION}/AgentSessions-{VERSION}.dmg` and label `Download Agent Sessions {VERSION} (DMG)`
- `README.md` Option A download link (second occurrence under Install section)
- `docs/index.html` download button URL and label
- `docs/index.html` version meta-line (`Version {VERSION} · Free & open source · No telemetry`)
### Do NOT version-pin the site meta descriptions
`docs/index.html`'s `description`, `og:description` and `twitter:description` are
**deliberately version-agnostic** as of the 2026-08-29 SEO work. This checklist used to
demand "mention current version + key change" there, which is how the homepage description
reached 541 chars reading "Version 5.0 makes every agent a plug-in adapter…" — past the
~155-char SERP budget, and stale the day after every release.
Leave them alone. If the product's positioning genuinely changes, rewrite them on their own
merits and keep the budget: **title ≤60, description ≤155.** Adding a version string is the
one edit that is always wrong. See the `reference-docs-site-seo-conventions` memory.
### Update for minor/major or user-visible feature releases
- `README.md` "What's New in X.Y" section: update heading to new version, rewrite TL;DR and Highlights to reflect this release's key changes (do not keep old version's copy)
- `docs/index.html` hero/feature copy if features were renamed or new agents added
### Never add
- Versioned "What's New in X.Y" section to `docs/index.html`
- Detailed release notes to README or website (those live in `docs/CHANGELOG.md`)
## Never Announce a Bug the User Never Had (Hard Rule)
**A fix to a feature that ships in this same release is not a Bug Fix. It is development.**
When a feature is new in X.Y, every defect found and fixed in it before X.Y shipped was
never in anyone's hands. Listing those under "Bug Fixes" invents a history of breakage
users never experienced, and buries the actual feature under a list of things that sound
broken. Ship the feature; the fixes are part of it.
Before writing any Bug Fix entry, ask: **which released version had this bug?** If the
answer is "none — the code is new in this release", the entry does not exist. Fold
anything user-visible into the feature's own Highlight instead.
Worked example (4.8, Grok CLI's first release):
- ❌ "A Grok session shows the title its own sidecar records" — Grok shipped in 4.8; no
user ever saw the wrong title.
- ❌ "Grok transcripts open with content in them" — same.
- ❌ "A Grok session's message count matches its transcript" — same.
- ✅ "Grok CLI is the eleventh current agent source…" — the Highlight, which already says
transcripts, images, Analytics and resume work.
Mixed entries need splitting, not deleting: a fix spanning shipped **and** new sources is
real for the shipped ones. Describe it in terms of those, and drop the new source from the
list. In 4.8 the CLI PATH-masking fix covered Cursor, Kimi and Pi (all shipped) plus Grok
(new) — it staCreate and ship AgentSessions support for a new or changed local AI agent/provider. Use when adding, reviewing, testing, documenting, or marketing a provider integration, session parser, transcript source, support-matrix entry, verified-version bump, or provider UI surface; drives the full loop from pre-support research through binary install, real session capture, fixture redaction, parser/discovery/search/UI integration, QA, review/fix loops, support records, PR/release notes, and conservative marketing claims.
Verify agent session format compatibility for Agent Sessions. Use when any agent CLI updates, when monitoring flags drift, or when bumping max verified versions (fixtures + docs + tests). Covers session schema, usage/limits tracking, storage backends, and discovery path contracts for all supported agents.
Maintain Agent Sessions agent support matrix and JSON/JSONL parsing compatibility. Use when checking upstream agent releases for session format changes, updating max verified versions in docs/agent-support/agent-support-matrix.yml, or updating docs/agent-json-tracking.md and fixtures/tests.
Capture deterministic macOS screenshots for testing, docs, release notes, and marketing assets. Use when asked to automate app screenshots, batch-generate screenshot sets, standardize window sizing/composition, or choose between Peekaboo and native macOS screenshot tooling.
Use when writing or curating the user-facing release copy for an Agent Sessions release — README "What's New", GitHub release notes, Sparkle release notes, or website/launch copy. Not for the internal CHANGELOG, which stays a full development history.
Use when wrapping up or capturing the current state of a coding session — writes a short, dated entry to the repo's RepoHandover.md so a future agent or you can resume without grepping archived sessions. Triggers on "handover", "hand off", "write handover", "capture state", "checkpoint this session".