Retire rules.publish from changelog render command

[lcawl]

Summary

Relates to #2917

Retires rules.publish from the changelog render command.
The retirement is backward-compatible and includes clear user communication through deprecation warnings.

Scope

• In scope: Remove rules.publish usage from the changelog render CLI path
• Out of scope: Removal from config schema (separate deprecation effort). The YAML may still be parsed for backward compatibility but treated as unused.
• Includes: Remove ReleaseNotesSerialization.LoadPublishBlocker() (dead code after retirement)

Implementation

1. ChangelogRenderUtilities

• ShouldHideEntry: Remove the rules.publish block entirely. Keep only feature-id check. When context?.Configuration?.Rules?.Publish is present, it is no longer applied; ShouldHide is determined solely by featureIdsToHide.
• GetComponent: Stop using GetPublishBlockerForEntry. Always use entry.Areas?[0] ?? string.Empty for subsection grouping (align with directive behavior).
• Remove: GetPublishBlockerForEntry and GetPublishBlockerForProduct (both private).

2. ChangelogRenderingService

• EmitBlockedEntryWarnings: Remove the entire method body's rules.publish logic. Simplest: remove the call to EmitBlockedEntryWarnings and delete the method.
• Remove: GetPublishBlockerForProduct and GetBlockReasons (only used for publish-rule warnings).
• Keep: GetEntryIdentifier if it has other uses; verify it's only for publish warnings before removing.

3. ChangelogConfigurationLoader

When rulesYaml.Publish != null, emit a deprecation warning: "rules.publish is deprecated and no longer used by the changelog render command. Move type/area filtering to rules.bundle, which applies at bundle time instead of render time.". Parse and load normally but set Rules.Publish = null so render command never sees it.

This approach:

• Is backward-compatible (configs don't break)
• Clearly notifies users the feature is ignored (warning message)
• Prepares for eventual removal (error can come in a future major version)

4. Test updates — BlockConfigurationTests (tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/Render/BlockConfigurationTests.cs)

All tests in this file exercise rules.publish behavior. With rules.publish retired:

• Rewrite tests to assert that rules.publish is ignored:
  • Configs that previously blocked entries (e.g. exclude_areas: [Allocation]) should now produce visible entries.
  • Remove or rewrite tests that assert "blocked entry is commented out" — they should assert "entry is visible (no blocking)".
• Remove tests that are purely about publish-rule semantics or convert them to verify non-blocking.
• Add explicit test: "Config with rules.publish emits deprecation warning and does not apply filtering."
• Add subsections test: "With --subsections enabled, entries are grouped by their first area (not filtered by rules.publish)."

5. Remove dead code

• Delete ReleaseNotesSerialization.LoadPublishBlocker() from src/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs
• Delete all tests in tests/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration.Tests/ReleaseNotes/LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs

6. Other test updates

• ChangelogConfigurationTests (tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/ChangelogConfigurationTests.cs): Tests that assert config.Rules.Publish is non-null now need updates. With our approach, configs that have rules.publish will have Rules.Publish = null. Update assertions accordingly.

Key Changes Summary

Code Removals:

• 1,681 lines deleted from BlockConfigurationTests.cs (all rules.publish render tests)
• 382 lines deleted from LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs (dead code)
• 109 lines removed from ChangelogRenderingService.cs (render blocking logic)
• 46 lines removed from ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs (dead code)
• 66 lines modified in ChangelogRenderUtilities.cs (simplified filtering)

Code Additions/Updates:

• Deprecation warning added in ChangelogConfigurationLoader.cs
• Test updates in ChangelogConfigurationTests.cs to verify Publish = null behavior
• Documentation updates in 4 files to reflect the retirement

Net Result: 2,325 lines deleted, 50 lines added = cleaner, simpler codebase

Impact

• Rules.bundle remains unchanged: Bundle-time filtering continues to work independently
• Users are warned: Deprecation warning guides users to migrate from rules.publish to rules.bundle

The implementation is production-ready and aligns the changelog render command with the {changelog} directive, which already doesn't use rules.publish.

Generative AI disclosure

1. Did you use a generative AI (GenAI) tool to assist in creating this contribution?

• Yes
• No

2. If you answered "Yes" to the previous question, please specify the tool(s) and model(s) used (e.g., Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT-4, etc.).

Tool(s) and model(s) used: composer-1.5, claude-4.5-haiku

[github-actions]

🔍 Preview links for changed docs

• docs/cli/release/changelog-render.md
• docs/contribute/changelog.md
• docs/syntax/changelog.md

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 99169553-027f-4492-bc11-3680ba20e798

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between c916e15 and 7fe944a.

📒 Files selected for processing (11)

• config/changelog.example.yml
• docs/cli/release/changelog-render.md
• docs/contribute/changelog.md
• docs/syntax/changelog.md
• src/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs
• src/services/Elastic.Changelog/Configuration/ChangelogConfigurationLoader.cs
• src/services/Elastic.Changelog/Rendering/ChangelogRenderUtilities.cs
• src/services/Elastic.Changelog/Rendering/ChangelogRenderingService.cs
• tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/ChangelogConfigurationTests.cs
• tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/Render/BlockConfigurationTests.cs
• tests/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration.Tests/ReleaseNotes/LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (3)

• src/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs
• tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/Render/BlockConfigurationTests.cs
• tests/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration.Tests/ReleaseNotes/LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This pull request deprecates the rules.publish configuration section by removing its enforcement from the changelog render command and related services. Filtering now occurs exclusively at bundle time via rules.bundle. Changes include updating documentation to reflect the new behavior, modifying configuration loading to set RulesConfiguration.Publish to null while emitting deprecation warnings, removing publish-rule-based filtering logic from rendering utilities, eliminating the public LoadPublishBlocker method, and deleting test suites that validated publish-blocking behavior.

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch render-rules

• 🛠️ Update Documentation: Commit on current branch
• 🛠️ Update Documentation: Create PR

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