Release checklist

This is the release gate. Keep it small and mechanical: the goal is to ship a correct, installable memory-integrity tool, not to add new mechanisms during release prep.

Package shape

• Published library package: dent8 (crates/dent8) — the facade crate (cargo add dent8).
• Published CLI package: dent8-cli (crates/dent8-cli); the installed binary is still dent8.
• Default features: signed source identity + embedded SQLite. The stock install is enough for local file-backed use and no-server multi-agent dogfooding via sqlite://.
• Opt-in features: postgres, export.

Install commands:

cargo install dent8-cli --locked
cargo install dent8-cli --features postgres --locked
cargo install dent8-cli --features export --locked

To test unreleased main ahead of a release, use the Git source:

cargo install --git https://github.com/xyzzylabs/dent8 dent8-cli --locked

Preflight

Run the normal correctness gate:

cargo fmt --all --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

Run the feature-shape gates that CI keeps honest:

cargo clippy -p dent8-cli --no-default-features --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test -p dent8-cli --no-default-features
cargo clippy -p dent8-cli --features postgres --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo clippy -p dent8-cli --features export --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test -p dent8-export

Run the release acceptance path:

scripts/release-acceptance.sh

To include the witness smoke (the witness is in the stock binary):

cargo build -p dent8-cli
DENT8_BIN=target/debug/dent8 DENT8_EXPECT_WITNESS=1 scripts/release-acceptance.sh

The script initializes a throwaway project with the Codex profile, signed identity, a stock SQLite backend, and the default project-local Codex MCP config; then it runs doctor --agent --write-check, doctor --all-agents --write-check, assert, facts list, explain, and verify. It also exercises the witness smoke (keygen -> sign -> verify -> publish -> verify-published), since the witness is a stock command.

Run the live Postgres gate when preparing a release locally:

docker compose up -d --wait
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:dent8@localhost:5432/dent8 \
  cargo test -p dent8-cli --features postgres --test cli_usage \
    concurrent_cli_asserts_on_shared_postgres_store_get_unique_event_ids
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:dent8@localhost:5432/dent8 \
  cargo test -p dent8-store-postgres --features adapter
docker compose down

Packaging

All workspace crates that depend on another dent8 crate must specify both path and a version matching the current workspace version (currently 0.8.0) so crates.io packaging can replace local paths with published versions.

Fast manifest/package check:

cargo package --workspace --no-verify

crates.io publishes automatically on tag (Trusted Publishing)

Pushing a vX.Y.Z tag runs the crates job in .github/workflows/release.yml — the same tokenless model PyPI and npm already use. rust-lang/crates-io-auth-action exchanges the run’s OIDC identity for a short-lived crates.io token (no CARGO_REGISTRY_TOKEN in GitHub secrets), then cargo publish --workspace uploads all eight crates in dependency order, waiting for each to index before its dependents.

One-time setup — required per crate before this works. Enable Trusted Publishing on crates.io for each of dent8, dent8-cli, dent8-core, dent8-evals, dent8-export, dent8-store, dent8-store-postgres, dent8-store-sqlite (the crate must already exist — all eight do). For each: crates.io → the crate → Settings → Trusted Publishing → Add, GitHub, with

• Repository owner and name: xyzzylabs/dent8
• Workflow filename: release.yml
• Environment: crates-io

One OIDC exchange then authorizes the whole workspace. Until every crate is configured, the crates job fails on the crate that isn’t (the PyPI/npm jobs are independent and still publish); finish the setup, then re-run the failed job.

Manual publish (fallback)

To publish by hand — before Trusted Publishing is set up, or to recover a partial run — the same cargo publish --workspace works locally with a cargo login token. Or one crate at a time in dependency order, because a downstream crate cannot verify against crates.io until its internal dependencies are already published:

cargo publish -p dent8-core --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-core

cargo publish -p dent8-store --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-store

cargo publish -p dent8 --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8

cargo publish -p dent8-evals --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-evals
cargo publish -p dent8-export --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-export
cargo publish -p dent8-store-postgres --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-store-postgres
cargo publish -p dent8-store-sqlite --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-store-sqlite

cargo publish -p dent8-cli --dry-run
cargo publish -p dent8-cli

After publishing (either path), verify the install in a clean temp directory. Use the rustup proxy so cargo and rustc are paired — a bare toolchain cargo can desync rustc and false-fail with Unrecognized option: 'check-cfg':

rustup run stable cargo install dent8-cli --version 0.8.0 --locked --root "$(mktemp -d)"
dent8 --version

Operated witness boundary

Do not block a release on a hosted witness service. The release includes the operated recipe:

• docs/witness.md explains writer/signer/monitor roles and JSON monitor output.
• examples/witness-operated/ packages the split with Docker Compose and systemd examples.

The fact is: dent8 ships the witness primitive (covering both the event log and, as of v0.2.0, the grant log), retains event- and grant-log heads off-host via witness publish/verify-published (--grants for the grant lane), and an operated deployment recipe. The remaining product work is managed infrastructure, monitoring, and key-rotation automation.