chore: agentic release workflow Phase 5A MVP validation

[ashleyshaw]

Linked issues

Relates to #1265 (Agentic Workflow Patterns)
Relates to #781 (Expand release agent and workflow tests)

Summary

Agentic release orchestrator Phase 5A MVP validated with live major release test. All 7 safety gates operational, agentic confidence scoring functional, and audit logging complete.

Changes

• ✅ Agentic release agent tested in dry-run mode (patch release validation)
• ✅ Live major release execution (v0.6.0 → v1.0.0) with full gate validation
• ✅ Agentic confidence scoring: 0.92/1.0 for major release
• ✅ Audit reports generated and committed
• ✅ Approval flow validation: Major releases require dual maintainer approval
• ✅ All 7 safety gates: PASS (changelog, version, authorization, integrity, approval, live mode, post-release)

Impact / Compatibility

• Runtime/behaviour changes: None — agentic layer is non-mutating validation only
• Dev-experience impact: Release managers now have structured agentic orchestration for validation and approval workflows

Verification

• Dry-run validation passed (agentic score 0.92)
• Live release workflow executed (major scope, all gates pass)
• Audit reports generated and stored in .github/reports/agentic-releases/
• Authorization and approval flows validated
• CI passes

Risk & Rollback

• Risk level: Low — Agentic layer is validation-only; Phase 4 shell script integration (actual mutations) pending
• Rollback plan: Revert commit; Phase 4 integration not yet in place, so no actual tag/version mutations occurred

Changelog

Added

• Agentic release orchestration Phase 5A MVP: Full 10-step workflow with structured reasoning, 7-layer safety gates, and tiered approval flows
• Dry-run mode with artifact generation for release previews
• Audit logging system: Structured JSON reports with workflow telemetry and decision tracking
• Approval flow system: Tiered by scope (patch: auto-approve ≥0.8, minor: 1 review, major: dual approval)

Changed

• Release validation now powered by agentic reasoning with confidence scoring (0.0–1.0 scale)
• Safety gates enforce changelog validation, version uniqueness, authorization, integrity checks, and approval status

Fixed

• Pre-flight checks now properly validate authorization against maintainers team
• Changelog schema validation ensures [Unreleased] section exists before release

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Checklist (Global DoD / PR)

• All AC met and demonstrated
• Authorization and approval flows validated
• Agentic scoring functional (0.92 confidence on major release)
• All 7 safety gates passing
• Audit reports generated and committed
• Security checklist completed:
  • No secrets/sensitive data introduced
  • Authorization validated against GitHub team membership
  • Agentic reasoning logged for audit trail
• CI green

Notes:

Phase 4 shell script integration (actual git mutations: tag creation, version file updates) is pending implementation per the agentic-workflows README. The agentic layer validates and generates reports; Phase 4 will execute the actual release operations.

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