[RELEASE-001] Pre-release checklist

[veryCrunchy]

Goal

Create a repeatable, reviewable prerelease process that cannot publish a stable or major version before the full product sprint is complete.

Policy

• All releases remain below 1.0.0 until the full sprint is explicitly declared complete.
• Allowed versions are 0.x.y-alpha.n, 0.x.y-beta.n, and 0.x.y-rc.n.
• Every GitHub release is marked as a prerelease.
• Release attempts with a mismatched tag, stable version, or 1.0.0 and higher must fail before packaging or publication.

Acceptance criteria

• Android and desktop builds use one canonical checked-in version.
• CI validates the prerelease version, deterministic Android version code, tag, and main-branch ancestry.
• A protected release environment gates publication.
• Release notes lead with user-visible changes, use plain language, and disclose known limitations.
• Privacy, permissions, upgrades/migrations, data loss, crash recovery, accessibility, real-app synthetic screenshots, metadata, and licenses are reviewed through a maintained checklist.
• Android artifacts are release-signed from protected secrets and verified before publication.
• Linux, Windows, and macOS packages are built on their native runners.
• Published assets include SHA-256 checksums and bounded machine-readable direct-update metadata.
• The release workflow always uses GitHub's prerelease flag and never silently creates or moves tags.
• Repository hygiene and the full Android, desktop, contract, and semantic-compiler test gate pass on the tagged source.