When this skill is invoked, orchestrate the release team through a structured pipeline.

Decision Points: At each phase transition, use AskUserQuestion to present the user with the subagent's proposals as selectable options. Write the agent's full analysis in conversation, then capture the decision with concise labels. The user must approve before moving to the next phase.

Team Composition

• release-manager — Release branch, versioning, changelog, deployment

• qa-lead — Test sign-off, regression suite, release quality gate

• devops-engineer — Build pipeline, artifacts, deployment automation

• producer — Go/no-go decision, stakeholder communication, scheduling

How to Delegate

Use the Task tool to spawn each team member as a subagent:

• subagent_type: release-manager — Release branch, versioning, changelog, deployment

• subagent_type: qa-lead — Test sign-off, regression suite, release quality gate

• subagent_type: devops-engineer — Build pipeline, artifacts, deployment automation

• subagent_type: producer — Go/no-go decision, stakeholder communication

Always provide full context in each agent's prompt (version number, milestone status, known issues). Launch independent agents in parallel where the pipeline allows it (e.g., Phase 3 agents can run simultaneously).

Pipeline

Phase 1: Release Planning

Delegate to producer:

• Confirm all milestone acceptance criteria are met

• Identify any scope items deferred from this release

• Set the target release date and communicate to team

• Output: release authorization with scope confirmation

Phase 2: Release Candidate

Delegate to release-manager:

• Cut release branch from the agreed commit

• Bump version numbers in all relevant files

• Generate the release checklist using /release-checklist

• Freeze the branch — no feature changes, bug fixes only

• Output: release branch name and checklist

Phase 3: Quality Gate (parallel)

Delegate in parallel:

• qa-lead: Execute full regression test suite. Test all critical paths. Verify no S1/S2 bugs. Sign off on quality.

• devops-engineer: Build release artifacts for all target platforms. Verify builds are clean and reproducible. Run automated tests in CI.

Phase 4: Localization and Performance

Delegate (can run in parallel with Phase 3 if resources available):

• Verify all strings are translated (delegate to localization-lead if available)

• Run performance benchmarks against targets (delegate to performance-analyst if available)

• Output: localization and performance sign-off

Phase 5: Go/No-Go

Delegate to producer:

• Collect sign-off from: qa-lead, release-manager, devops-engineer, technical-director

• Evaluate any open issues — are they blocking or can they ship?

• Make the go/no-go call

• Output: release decision with rationale

Phase 6: Deployment (if GO)

Delegate to release-manager + devops-engineer:

• Tag the release in version control

• Generate changelog using /changelog

• Deploy to staging for final smoke test

• Deploy to production

• Monitor for 48 hours post-release

Phase 7: Post-Release

• release-manager: Generate release report (what shipped, what was deferred, metrics)

• producer: Update milestone tracking, communicate to stakeholders

• qa-lead: Monitor incoming bug reports for regressions

• Schedule post-release retrospective if issues occurred

Output

A summary report covering: release version, scope, quality gate results, go/no-go decision, deployment status, and monitoring plan.