finalize app release

finalize-app-release

Shipping one of my Mac apps (LanGuard, MaccyPlus, VaultBar, Window Organizer, SmartHiddenBar, MeetAlert, Agents Monitor, agentctl, claude-jam) is twenty small steps across four repos: the version, the CHANGELOG, the README, the wiki, Ko-fi links, the GitHub release and its zip, the Homebrew cask, the tap's README, pushing it all, and upgrading the copy you actually run. Each one is easy; one of them is always forgotten. This plugin is one skill that runs the whole checklist.

Setup

/plugin marketplace add roypadina/padina-claude-code-plugins
/plugin install finalize-app-release@padina

Requires macOS, git, the GitHub CLI gh logged in as the repo owner, Homebrew, and the tap checked out at ~/Code/Padina/homebrew-tap (override with TAP_WORK). It is written for my own repos and accounts — fork it and change OWNER in the script and the account details in SKILL.md.

How it runs

• You: /finalize-app-release [app dir or name] [recheck] at the end of a session.
• Claude, on its own: when work on one of these apps wraps up — "release", "ship it", "push all", a version bump, a release build, the session ending — it runs the state check and offers the fixes.

Step 1 — the state script

skills/finalize-app-release/scripts/release-state.sh <repo> prints OK / GAP / WARN / INFO lines in about ten seconds. It only reads (plus git fetch --tags).

Area	Checks
Repo	clean tree, branch pushed (compared with the server), repo-local noreply commit email
Version	finds the source of truth (package.json, *.xcconfig, package script, Info.plist, pbxproj), tag exists, commits since the tag
Release	latest GitHub release = source version, its asset names
Tap	cask/formula version, cask url asset + sha256 = the release asset, tap README row, tap working copy and brew's clone = the server
Docs	CHANGELOG / appcast.xml top entry, README brew install line, mentions of the previous version left in README, docs and wiki
Wiki	initialised on GitHub, cloned locally, committed, pushed, changed since the release
Ko-fi (public repos)	README badge + ## Support, FUNDING.yml, wiki sidebar/footer/Home, a Ko-fi link in the app source
Local install	/Applications copy is the source version, not quarantined, one copy running from /Applications

Step 2 — the checklist

Claude works through what the script flagged, plus what a script can't judge — does the README and the wiki describe what the app does now?

1. Code — build and tests green, committed and pushed (PR + CI on protected repos).
2. Docs — CHANGELOG entry (created once from past release notes if missing), README, wiki pages and sidebar, other docs; stale version strings fixed.
3. Ko-fi — README, FUNDING.yml, wiki, in-app About window and menu items (built from a reference for a new app; only verified for existing ones).
4. Release — zip from the repo's own script, asset named like the cask URL, tag, gh release, downloaded sha256 checked.
5. Tap — cask bumped, tap README row current, brew style clean, pushed over SSH and verified on the server.
6. Local install — upgraded from the tap (or the app's own dev build where its permissions need that), quarantine cleared, relaunched from /Applications, version checked.
7. Wrap-up — memory note, temp-file cleanup (asks first), stamp, a report table.

Public steps — push, tag, release, wiki, tap — run only when you asked for a release in that session. Anything net-new (making a repo public, a first cask, rewriting history) always asks first.

"Already done"

After a clean run, release-state.sh <repo> --stamp records the version and the repo, wiki and tap commits in ~/.local/state/finalize-app-release/. The next run prints STAMP MATCH while none of them changed, and Claude reports "already finalized" instead of reviewing again. Say recheck to force a full pass.

New public app

references/new-public-app.md covers the first publish: privacy triple check (denylist grep over tree, history, wiki and binary; gitleaks; an independent reviewer agent; PNG metadata), history squash, community files, CI and branch protection, repo metadata, icons, the About window with Ko-fi, the wiki (the first page has to be created in the web UI), and the first cask with its tap README row.