chore: complete OSS release rollout

[inureyes]

Tracking issue for completing the OSS release of mlxcel. The repository was flipped to PUBLIC on 2026-05-18 and v0.0.27 is now published as the first public stable release. This issue tracks remaining hardening, community-health, and verification work so the public release can be considered fully ready for external contributors.

v0.0.27 live functional verification (Gemma 4 MTP / Qwen 3.5 DFlash byte-equality, /v1/responses cancel-in-flight, downloader progress bars, APC partial adoption) is tracked in a separate issue (#2) and is intentionally out of scope here.

Done so far

Repository metadata & community basics

• LICENSE (Apache 2.0) added at repo root
• Public-facing README.md rewritten
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md (Contributor Covenant) added
• AGENTS.md contributor guide added
• Public docs/ set added: architecture.md, adding-models.md, benchmarks.md, code-guidelines.md, distributed.md, environment-variables.md, installation.md, responses-api.md, supported-models.md, turbo-kv-cache.md, README.md
• .gitleaksignore added with 15 known false-positive findings
• mlxcel-core/Cargo.toml license aligned to Apache-2.0
• README.md benchmark snapshot refreshed (de64cb8)

CI / release pipeline hardening (bbc5777)

• release.yml: default-deny top-level permissions: {} + per-job grants
• release.yml: github.repository == 'lablup/mlxcel' guard against fork workflow_dispatch
• release.yml: persist-credentials: false on every actions/checkout@v6 step
• pipeline-parallel-ci.yml: fork-PR guard on both two-host-logical and three-host-real-model jobs
• update_homebrew_formula.yml: new workflow (port from lablup/all-smi) that updates Formula/mlxcel.rb on lablup/homebrew-tap after each Release completes — workflow_run + workflow_dispatch, gnu-sed in-place version/url/sha256 replace, single macOS Apple Silicon artifact, 1 MB undersized-download abort, idempotent commit (no empty commit on re-run), uses org-wide HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN

GitHub project setup

• packaging deployment environment created on lablup/mlxcel
• packaging env deployment branch policy restricted to v* tags + main branch
• Signing secrets registered on packaging env: DEV_ID_CERT_P12, DEV_ID_CERT_PASSWORD (verified)
• TEAMS_RELEASE_NOTIFICATION_WORKFLOW_URL added to org-level secret access list for lablup/mlxcel

Homebrew tap

• lablup/homebrew-tap placeholder commit (5304231) — Formula/mlxcel.rb written with depends_on macos: :sonoma, depends_on arch: :arm64, libexec.install \"mlxcel\", \"mlxcel-server\", \"mlx.metallib\" + bin.write_exec_script twice (mlx device.cpp:106 colocation pattern)

Public flip

• lablup/mlxcel visibility flipped to PUBLIC
• v0.0.27 published as stable (isPrerelease: false) — first public release

Remaining work

A. Required before fully trusting the release pipeline

• packaging environment required reviewers — inureyes registered as required reviewer on 2026-05-18 with prevent_self_review: false (verified via gh api repos/lablup/mlxcel/environments/packaging). Current configuration provides an "abort window" before deployment proceeds rather than a true 4-eyes gate — self-trigger + self-approve is possible by design while release tooling is being automated. Follow-up (deferred): hardening to a real 4-eyes gate tracked in chore: harden packaging environment to enforce 4-eyes review on signed releases #6 — triggered once release tooling is fully automated.
• Self-hosted runner group access — configured on 2026-05-18 via org settings UI: lablup/mlxcel is included in the runner group's Repository access list and "Allow public repositories" is enabled on the group containing self-hosted-macos-26-arm64 and GB10 runners. Static API verification (gh api orgs/lablup/actions/runner-groups) requires admin:org scope and was not re-run; the UI change is trusted.
• main branch protection — applied via Repository Ruleset main protection (ruleset ID 16521084, enforcement: active, target ~DEFAULT_BRANCH, bypass actors empty). Rules: deletion (deletion blocked) + non_fast_forward (force-push blocked). Required PR review and required status checks were deliberately not included in this initial scope — the ruleset focuses on preventing accidental destructive operations.
• TEAMS_RELEASE_NOTIFICATION_WORKFLOW_URL static verification — verified via GitHub UI on 2026-05-18 (org settings → Actions secrets → TEAMS_RELEASE_NOTIFICATION_WORKFLOW_URL → Repository access). lablup/mlxcel is present in the "Selected repositories" list.

B. Community health files (50% → 100% community profile health after PR #3)

All B-section items shipped in PR #3 (squash-merged as cb2002b):

• CONTRIBUTING.md — entry-level contributor guide, points to AGENTS.md for the deep working contract
• SECURITY.md — 90-day coordinated disclosure, severity-based timelines, mlxcel-specific in/out-of-scope sections
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml — structured form
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/feature_request.yml — structured form
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml — disables blank issues; routes security to private advisory, questions to Discussions, upstream MLX bugs to ml-explore/mlx
• .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md — summary + test plan + conventional-commit checklist
• CITATION.cff — Citation File Format v1.2.0, Apache-2.0, v0.0.27

C. Homebrew end-to-end verification

• Trigger the first auto-bump from a real release (either re-run update_homebrew_formula.yml for v0.0.27 via workflow_dispatch, or wait for the next release) and confirm the placeholder SHA256 in lablup/homebrew-tap/Formula/mlxcel.rb is replaced with the real hash of mlxcel-macos-aarch64.zip.
• Verify brew tap lablup/tap && brew install mlxcel works end-to-end on a clean macOS Sonoma+ Apple Silicon machine — both mlxcel and mlxcel-server invocable, mlx.metallib colocated, GPU inference works.

D. Security / quality posture for PUBLIC repo

• Re-run gitleaks detect against the now-public history — gitleaks 8.30.1 on 2026-05-18, 564 commits / 16.43 MB scanned in 3.31s → no leaks found, .gitleaksignore in effect.
• GitHub-native security scanning (all sub-items resolved):
  • Secret Scanning enabled + Push Protection enabled (verified via gh api repos/lablup/mlxcel --jq .security_and_analysis on 2026-05-18)
  • Dependabot version updates — .github/dependabot.yml merged in PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 (cb2002b): cargo (root, mlxcel-core, mlxcel-surgery) + github-actions, weekly Monday 09:00 KST. First run: next Monday 09:00 KST.
  • Dependabot security updates — enabled on 2026-05-18 (verified via gh api repos/lablup/mlxcel --jq .security_and_analysis.dependabot_security_updates.status → enabled); auto-PRs will fire for new RUSTSEC/CVE advisories independent of the weekly version-updates schedule
  • CodeQL deferred → equivalent coverage via cargo-deny (advisories + licenses + sources) in PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 — Rust CodeQL is beta-tier with low signal for cargo crates
• Private vulnerability reporting — enabled on 2026-05-18 (verified via gh api repos/lablup/mlxcel/private-vulnerability-reporting → enabled: true); GitHub Security Advisories channel referenced in SECURITY.md (PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3)
• PR-level cargo-deny gate via .github/workflows/ci.yml — merged in PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 (cb2002b): runs cargo deny check on every Rust-touching push/PR via the EmbarkStudios/cargo-deny-action@v2 action on ubuntu-latest. Originally not listed in the issue (gap discovered while writing PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 — mlxcel had no general PR-time audit gate); closes the "external PR can land without security audit" risk surface. Self-verified — PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3's own push triggered the workflow and the cargo-deny job passed before merge.

E. Documentation polish for external readers

• Add status badges to README.md (license, latest release, CI status) — merged in PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 (cb2002b). Homebrew badge omitted because lablup/tap is a third-party tap and shields.io's homebrew/v badge only resolves against homebrew-core.
• Verify all internal links in docs/ resolve in the rendered PUBLIC view — no docs_internal/ references found in docs/, README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, or AGENTS.md (verified via grep -rn docs_internal on 2026-05-18).
• Add a "How to contribute" pointer from README.md to CONTRIBUTING.md — merged in PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 (cb2002b): Contributing section now links to CONTRIBUTING.md for the contributor workflow + SECURITY.md for vulnerability reports.

Out of scope (tracked elsewhere)

• v0.0.27 live functional verification (Gemma 4 MTP / Qwen 3.5 DFlash byte-equality, /v1/responses cancel-in-flight, downloader progress bars, APC partial cache adoption) → test: v0.0.27 live verification (post-OSS-release) #2
• cargo fmt drift cleanup (214 violations) + fmt CI gate → chore: reformat tree with cargo fmt and add fmt to CI gate #4
• cargo clippy + cargo test PR-level gate (self-hosted macOS arm64) → ci: add clippy and cargo test gates to ci.yml via self-hosted macOS runner #5
• packaging environment 4-eyes hardening (deferred until release tooling is fully automated) → chore: harden packaging environment to enforce 4-eyes review on signed releases #6
• mlxcel-core / mlxcel-surgery workspace member conversion (unifies Cargo.lock + simplifies Dependabot) → refactor: convert mlxcel-core and mlxcel-surgery into workspace members #7
• bincode 1.x migration to a maintained alternative (RUSTSEC-2025-0141, currently in deny.toml ignore list with justification) → refactor: migrate mlxcel-core off unmaintained bincode 1.x #8
• Future release-pipeline improvements (e.g. signed Linux artifacts, automatic release-notes templates) — not yet filed

References

• Commits: b948e79 (OSS-release metadata), de64cb8 (README benchmark refresh), bbc5777 (release pipeline + homebrew bump workflow), cb2002b (PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 — security automation + community health + ci.yml + README polish)
• PRs: chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 (security automation + community health, merged 2026-05-18)
• Follow-ups: test: v0.0.27 live verification (post-OSS-release) #2 (v0.0.27 live verify), chore: reformat tree with cargo fmt and add fmt to CI gate #4 (fmt cleanup), ci: add clippy and cargo test gates to ci.yml via self-hosted macOS runner #5 (clippy/test gate), chore: harden packaging environment to enforce 4-eyes review on signed releases #6 (packaging 4-eyes), refactor: convert mlxcel-core and mlxcel-surgery into workspace members #7 (workspace), refactor: migrate mlxcel-core off unmaintained bincode 1.x #8 (bincode migration)
• Release: https://github.com/lablup/mlxcel/releases/tag/v0.0.27
• Homebrew tap: https://github.com/lablup/homebrew-tap/blob/main/Formula/mlxcel.rb

[inureyes]

OSS release infrastructure complete. Closing this tracking issue — all checkboxes resolved.

Final state

• Sections A (release pipeline) / B (community health) / C (Homebrew E2E) / D (PUBLIC security posture) / E (README polish): all done
• Repo is PUBLIC, v0.0.27 stable published, Homebrew formula in place, release pipeline hardened, community health profile at 100%, PR-time cargo deny check gate live, gitleaks rescan clean (564 commits / 16.43 MB / no leaks).

Live verification

• PR chore: add OSS security automation and community health files #3 squash-merged as cb2002b (2026-05-18): security automation + community health + ci.yml + README polish
• ci.yml self-verified — its cargo-deny job passed against this very PR before merge

Follow-ups (open issues)

• test: v0.0.27 live verification (post-OSS-release) #2 — v0.0.27 live functional verification
• chore: reformat tree with cargo fmt and add fmt to CI gate #4 — cargo fmt drift cleanup + fmt CI gate
• ci: add clippy and cargo test gates to ci.yml via self-hosted macOS runner #5 — clippy / cargo test PR gate via self-hosted macOS arm64
• chore: harden packaging environment to enforce 4-eyes review on signed releases #6 — packaging env 4-eyes hardening (backlog, triggers once release tooling is fully automated)
• refactor: convert mlxcel-core and mlxcel-surgery into workspace members #7 — mlxcel-core / mlxcel-surgery workspace member conversion
• refactor: migrate mlxcel-core off unmaintained bincode 1.x #8 — bincode 1.x migration (RUSTSEC-2025-0141 ignore removal)

Future work tracks against these issues, not this one.