🔧 build(ci): ensure CI runs on prepare-release PRs

[codekiln]

Summary

Fixes #640

Modifies the CI workflow to always run on release branches (release/v*) created by the prepare-release workflow, even when only documentation or changelog files are modified.

This resolves the issue where the Release workflow's verify-ci job fails because it expects CI checks (Check, Test, Clippy, Build) to have run, but they were skipped due to paths-ignore filters.

Changes

Workflow-Level Changes

• Removed paths-ignore filters from workflow-level triggers (previously at lines 8-12, 16-22)
• Replaced with job-level conditional execution for more fine-grained control

New changes Job

Added a new job that determines whether to run CI based on:

1. Branch name pattern: Always runs CI for release/* branches (created by prepare-release workflow)
2. Changed files: For regular PRs, skips CI if only these files changed:
   • **/*.md (markdown files)
   • docs/** (documentation directory)
   • *.txt (root-level text files)
   • .gitignore
3. Push events: Always runs CI for pushes to main

Job Dependencies

• All CI jobs now depend on the changes job
• Jobs run conditionally: if: needs.changes.outputs.should_run == 'true'
• Updated all-jobs aggregator to include changes in its needs list

Implementation Details

The changes job (lines 29-90):

• Detects release branches using pattern matching: release/*
• For PRs, uses gh pr view to get changed files and filters them
• Sets output should_run to true/false based on the checks above

All downstream jobs check needs.changes.outputs.should_run == 'true' before running.

Why This Approach?

Alternative approaches considered:

1. ❌ pull_request_target: Security implications (runs in base branch context)
2. ❌ Multiple workflow triggers: GitHub Actions merges multiple pull_request entries
3. ❌ Workflow-level conditionals: Can't access PR metadata if workflow is filtered out by paths-ignore

✅ Job-level conditionals: Allows workflow to run, then conditionally execute jobs based on branch and file changes.

Testing

This PR will test the new logic:

• Modified only .github/workflows/ci.yml
• Should trigger full CI since it's a code file change
• Once merged, release PRs will trigger CI even with only CHANGELOG.md changes

References

• Issue: 🔧 build(ci): ensure CI runs on prepare-release PRs regardless of path filters #640
• Failed release workflow: https://github.com/codekiln/langstar/actions/runs/19992537324
• prepare-release workflow: .github/workflows/prepare-release.yml:241 (branch pattern)
• Release workflow verify-ci job: .github/workflows/release.yml:19-58

Test Plan

• YAML syntax validated (via gh workflow view)
• Commit follows conventional emoji commits
• CI runs successfully on this PR (workflow file changed)
• After merge: Test by creating a release PR with only CHANGELOG.md changes
• Verify Release workflow succeeds when CI checks are present

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.5 noreply@anthropic.com

[github-actions]

Unit Test Results

174 tests   174 ✅  1s ⏱️
  1 suites    0 💤
  1 files      0 ❌

Results for commit 82248c4.

♻️ This comment has been updated with latest results.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR modifies the CI workflow to ensure that all CI jobs run on release branches (matching release/* pattern) even when only documentation or changelog files are modified. This fixes issue #640 where the Release workflow's verify-ci job was failing because CI checks were being skipped due to paths-ignore filters.

Key Changes:

• Removed workflow-level paths-ignore filters and replaced them with a new changes job that performs job-level conditional execution
• Added branch pattern detection to always run CI for release/* branches
• Updated all CI jobs to depend on the changes job with conditional execution based on file changes

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

.github/workflows/ci.yml:366

• Missing the check-feature-publish-status job from the all-jobs needs list. The all-jobs aggregator should include all jobs that can run in the workflow to properly reflect the overall CI status.

Add check-feature-publish-status to the needs list at line 367:

needs:
  - changes
  - check
  - test
  - integration-tests
  - clippy
  - audit
  - build
  - check-feature-publish-status

Note: Jobs with conditional execution (like if: github.event_name == 'pull_request') can still be included in the needs list; they'll show as "skipped" when conditions aren't met, which the jq check at line 370 already handles correctly.

    needs:
      - changes
      - check
      - test
      - integration-tests
      - clippy
      - audit
      - build

---

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[github-actions]

Integration Test Results

275 tests   275 ✅  3m 3s ⏱️
 10 suites    0 💤
  1 files      0 ❌

Results for commit 82248c4.

♻️ This comment has been updated with latest results.