fix(release): isolate alpha releases

[guibeira]

What changed

• Route alpha releases from Create Tag to the experimental registry channel.
• Preserve the selected latest, next, or experimental channel for stable, beta, and release-candidate releases.
• Document that alpha releases cannot advance latest.

Why

An alpha release of image-resize was published with latest, replacing the stable install pointer. Alpha builds are intended for testing and must remain isolated from stable installs.

Validation

• actionlint .github/workflows/create-tag.yml
• git diff --check
• Verified alpha routes to experimental, while beta and rc retain their selected channels.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes

  • Alpha releases are now consistently published to the experimental channel, preventing them from advancing the stable latest channel.
  • Release publishing now honors the effective channel selected during version calculation.

• Documentation

  • Clarified how version suffixes and registry channels interact during releases.
  • Documented the special handling for alpha releases.

[vercel]

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
workers	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jul 29, 2026 6:54pm
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[coderabbitai]

Caution

Review failed

The pull request is closed.

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: b3716944-ce66-41c2-acf0-0ab6c1bd2a0d

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between a1742f8 and e40d37c.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• .github/workflows/create-tag.yml
• docs/sops/release.md

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The Create Tag workflow now derives an effective registry channel, mapping alpha to experimental before publishing. Release documentation describes the independent suffix and channel behavior and records the alpha-specific override.

Changes

Alpha registry channel handling

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Workflow channel normalization .github/workflows/create-tag.yml	The workflow captures the requested channel, maps alpha to experimental, exposes the computed value, and uses it for tag creation and publication.
Release channel documentation docs/sops/release.md	Release guidance explains suffix/channel independence and states that alpha releases always use the experimental channel.

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant CreateTag as Create Tag workflow
  participant Versions as versions step
  participant Publisher as tag creation and publish step
  CreateTag->>Versions: pass requested registry channel
  Versions->>Versions: normalize alpha to experimental
  Versions->>Publisher: output effective registry_tag
  Publisher->>Publisher: publish using effective channel

Loading

Possibly related PRs

• iii-hq/workers#615: Adds and validates alpha as a registry-tag channel in release parsing and workflow-related documentation.
• iii-hq/workers#626: Aligns alpha release flow and documentation with experimental-channel publication.

Suggested reviewers: ytallo, rohitg00

Poem

I’m a bunny hopping through the tag,
Mapping alpha to experimental’s flag.
Suffix here, channel there,
Safe from latest everywhere—
Release hops neatly in its bag! 🐇

✨ Finishing Touches 💡 1

🛠️ Fix failing CI checks 💡

• Fix failing CI checks

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/alpha-experimental-channel

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[github-actions]

skill-check — worker

0 verified, 49 skipped (no docs/).

Layer	Result
structure	✓
vale	✓
ai	✓
render	✓

Four for four. Nicely done.