Releases and Upstream Automation

Releases and Upstream Automation

Release artifacts

Stable releases provide:

• panel.tar.gz — source plus compiled production assets
• panel.tar.gz.sha256 — SHA-256 integrity checksum
• Multi-architecture container tags in GitHub Container Registry

Only panel.tar.gz is an installable panel archive. GitHub's automatically generated source archives omit ignored compiled assets and are intended for source inspection, not installation. Use a versioned container tag for production; edge follows main and is intended for testing.

Release checks

A manual version tag validates TypeScript, ESLint, Jest, production Webpack output, PHP formatting, unit tests, and integration tests across PHP 8.2/8.3, MySQL 8/9, and MariaDB 10/11, plus a candidate container build for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64. It then creates a draft release containing the archive and checksum. Publishing that reviewed draft starts the stable container build and pushes its versioned tags.

Upstream Autopilot additionally builds the multi-architecture candidate before promotion, then dispatches the stable and edge container publishes after the verified release is created.

Upstream Autopilot

The scheduled workflow checks official pterodactyl/panel releases. When a new stable version is detected, it:

1. Fetches the previous and new official Pterodactyl trees.
2. Performs a three-tree merge with the current Rockdactyl tree.
3. Preserves fork-owned release and documentation files.
4. Updates compatibility and version metadata.
5. Builds and tests the candidate in isolation.
6. Publishes only when the frontend, backend, and multi-architecture container validation succeeds.

A failed merge or pre-promotion check leaves main and the latest release untouched. If a release or registry operation fails after main advances, the next run revalidates that exact commit and repairs only the missing tag, assets, or container aliases. One actionable issue tracks failures until publication is healthy. The workflow rejects upstream downgrades and never force-pushes main or an existing release tag.

Maintainers can run Actions → Upstream Autopilot → Run workflow and provide an explicit stable tag for a controlled retry.

Versioning

Rockdactyl uses semantic version tags. Patch releases cover compatible fixes and verified upstream ports; minor releases add compatible features or settings; major releases may change deployment or compatibility expectations.