fix(release): use v<semver> tag format for nightly releases

[EfeDurmaz16]

Closes #2181

What

Drop the nightly- prefix from nightly release tags so they become valid semver that electron-updater can parse.

• Before: nightly-v0.0.21-nightly.20260417.58
• After: v0.0.21-nightly.20260417.58

Stable tags (v<semver>) are unchanged. Existing nightly-v* tags stay in the repo as inert history — no retagging.

Why

The nightly update track has never actually worked. #2181 reports it, and you can reproduce it on 0.0.20: switch to the Nightly channel → "Check for updates" → Error: No published versions on GitHub.

Root cause is in electron-updater's GitHubProvider, which uses the semver package to parse tags from releases.atom. Two places, same problem:

1. Channel matching — providers/GitHubProvider.js:68:

const hrefChannel = semver.prerelease(hrefTag)?.[0] || null;

With autoUpdater.channel = 'nightly' and allowPrerelease = true, a release is selected only when hrefChannel === 'nightly'. For that to hold, the tag must be valid semver with a prerelease identifier nightly.

• semver.prerelease('v0.0.21-nightly.20260417.58') → ['nightly', '20260417', 58] ✅
• semver.prerelease('nightly-v0.0.21-nightly.20260417.58') → null ❌ (the leading nightly-v breaks semver's grammar, which requires either a digit or an optional v + digit)

So no entry in the atom feed matches and the loop exits with tag == null, throwing No published versions on GitHub.

2. Release notes computation — providers/GitHubProvider.js:189:

const versionRelease = /\/tag\/v?([^/]+)$/.exec(...)[1];
if (semver.valid(versionRelease) && semver.lt(currentVersion, versionRelease)) { ... }

The optional v? strip doesn't help either — the remainder (nightly-v0.0.21-...) still isn't semver.valid(), so nightlies never show up in release notes either.

Fix

The minimal, library-aligned fix: make the tag valid semver. Dropping the nightly- prefix yields v<base>-nightly.<date>.<run>, which:

• Is semver.valid() ✅
• Has prerelease identifier nightly — matches autoUpdater.channel = 'nightly' ✅
• Is ordered correctly relative to stable (0.0.21-nightly.20260417.58 < 0.0.21 < 0.0.22) ✅

Changes

• scripts/resolve-nightly-release.ts — emit v<version> instead of nightly-v<version>.
• scripts/resolve-nightly-release.test.ts, scripts/release-smoke.ts — fixtures updated for the new tag.
• scripts/resolve-previous-release-tag.ts:
  • parseStableTag now rejects tags whose first prerelease identifier is nightly (the new nightly tags also start with v, so the stable resolver has to skip them explicitly).
  • parseNightlyTag accepts both the new v<version> format and the legacy nightly-v<version> format so the "previous nightly" release-note diff keeps working across the transition.
• .github/workflows/release.yml:
  • last_nightly_tag lookup matches v*-nightly.* in addition to legacy nightly-v*.
  • push.tags trigger excludes v*-nightly.* so creating a new nightly tag doesn't accidentally re-trigger the stable release path.

No runtime code (apps/desktop/*) is touched. No library patches, no workarounds — just aligning the tag we publish with the format electron-updater already expects.

Why not a runtime workaround in main.ts?

I considered a desktop-side workaround (fetch recent releases via GitHub API, pick the latest nightly ourselves, point autoUpdater.setFeedURL at that release as a generic provider). Decided against it because:

• It creates two parallel update-resolution paths (stable uses GitHubProvider, nightly uses custom logic) that need to stay in sync forever.
• It commits us to the oddball nightly-v* tag format indefinitely, with client-side logic whose only job is to work around that format.
• The tag format was introduced 3 days ago in Nightly release channel #2012 and has never worked end-to-end, so "don't break existing behavior" doesn't really apply here.

The tag-format change is 5 files, 15 insertions, 6 deletions — all in release tooling, none in runtime.

Testing

• bun fmt, bun lint, bun typecheck, bun run test all pass.
• scripts/resolve-nightly-release.test.ts asserts the new tag shape.
• Manually ran node scripts/resolve-nightly-release.ts and node scripts/resolve-previous-release-tag.ts for both channels against the current repo tags — previous_tag resolution correctly finds v0.0.19 for stable and the last nightly-v* legacy tag for nightly.
• End-to-end verification (installing the resulting build and updating) requires the CI pipeline to publish — happy to iterate if you want additional coverage before merge.

Risks / compatibility

• Old nightly-v* tags: untouched, no rename. They remain in git history and on the Releases page.
• Users currently on a nightly-v* build: they cannot update today anyway (that's the bug). After this PR the next nightly will be v<semver>, semver.gt picks it up correctly, and they transition forward. No "stuck user" scenario.
• Stable release flow: unchanged. Stable tags are still v<semver> without a -nightly.* prerelease.
• push.tags trigger: the added !v*-nightly.* exclusion prevents the stable path from firing when the nightly job creates the new-format tag.

Note

Fix nightly release tag format to use v<semver>-nightly.<date>.<run>

• Changes resolveNightlyReleaseMetadata in resolve-nightly-release.ts to generate tags as v<semver>-nightly.<date>.<run> instead of nightly-v<semver>-nightly.<date>.<run>.
• Updates parseNightlyTag in resolve-previous-release-tag.ts to accept both the new v*-nightly.* format and the legacy nightly-v* format.
• Fixes parseStableTag to exclude nightly-tagged versions from being treated as stable releases.
• Updates the release workflow to exclude v*-nightly.* tags from triggering the stable release job, and to search both tag formats when finding the last nightly.
• Behavioral Change: nightly tags created going forward will use the new v*-nightly.* format; old nightly-v* tags remain recognized for backward compatibility.

^{Macroscope summarized 5a0162d.}

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[macroscopeapp]

Approvability

Verdict: Approved

This PR changes the nightly release tag format from nightly-v<semver> to v<semver>-nightly.* and updates related scripts to handle both formats. The changes are limited to CI/CD release scripts and workflows with no production runtime impact, and include corresponding test updates.

^{You can customize Macroscope's approvability policy. Learn more.}

[juliusmarminge]

Thanks