# Release candidates

This is a contributor and release-engineering procedure, not an end-user setup
path. Publication is a three-stage transaction:

1. `candidate` builds immutable archives and a manifest with paths relative to
   the manifest directory.
2. `live-test` downloads that exact candidate in a clean job, deploys it, and
   records the full named production-shaped acceptance result plus deployment,
   runtime configuration, and proxy configuration identities.
3. `final` downloads the candidate and evidence in another clean job, verifies
   every binding, and publishes without rebuilding any binary.

Set `CLUSTERFLUX_RELEASE_STAGE=candidate` while creating the candidate and
`CLUSTERFLUX_RELEASE_STAGE=final` while finalizing it. The final stage requires
`CLUSTERFLUX_RELEASE_CANDIDATE_MANIFEST` and complete live evidence. There is no
incomplete-evidence publication override.

The `clusterflux-release` runner must provide `CLUSTERFLUX_DEPLOY_COMMAND` as a
protected secret. The command runs locally with
`CLUSTERFLUX_CANDIDATE_ARCHIVE`, `CLUSTERFLUX_CANDIDATE_COORDINATOR`, and their
SHA-256 identities exported. It must deploy that executable and restart the
configured service. `scripts/deploy-release-candidate.sh` then independently
compares the running `/proc/<MainPID>/exe` digest with the candidate and records
the service and proxy unit identities; a mismatch stops the release.

Clusterflux release binaries are built once. The public client/node archive and
the private-source hosted-service archive are both digest-bound to the same
candidate. The hosted archive is deployed, the strict production-shaped batch
uses the public archive against it, and finalization copies both archives
without rebuilding.

Create the candidate in a dedicated directory:

~~~bash
CLUSTERFLUX_PUBLIC_RELEASE_DIR=target/release-candidate \
CLUSTERFLUX_RELEASE_STAGE=candidate \
./scripts/prepare-public-release.js
~~~

Deploy `target/release-candidate/assets/clusterflux-public-binaries-*.tar.gz`.
Set `CLUSTERFLUX_PUBLIC_RELEASE_MANIFEST` to the candidate manifest while
running the strict batch. Set `CLUSTERFLUX_QUALITY_GATE_EVIDENCE_PATH` to the
JSON record from the private and public acceptance commands. The result records
the source commit, source-tree and
public-tree identities, candidate binary digests, deployment generation, and
configuration identity.

Finalize into a different directory after the strict result passes:

~~~bash
CLUSTERFLUX_PUBLIC_RELEASE_DIR=target/public-release \
CLUSTERFLUX_RELEASE_CANDIDATE_MANIFEST=target/release-candidate/public-release-manifest.json \
CLUSTERFLUX_FINAL_RESULT_PATH=target/acceptance/cli-happy-path-live.json \
./scripts/prepare-public-release.js
~~~

Finalization rejects a changed commit, source tree, public tree, candidate
archive, binary digest set, deployment binding, or strict result. It never runs
the release binary build when a candidate manifest is supplied.