Skill: ship

The closing step. review confirmed the change is correct on paper; ship confirms it works in reality and packages it for merge. The loop ends here: a reviewed, verified change with a changelog and an open PR — not a merge to main (that stays a human decision).

Forge-agnostic and stack-agnostic: the verification commands are detected the way implement detects them; the PR step targets whatever forge the remote points at (GitHub via gh, GitLab via glab, or copy-paste).

Changelog + PR-body prose follow artifact_language — commit messages, branch names and the SDD-Task/SDD-AC trailers stay English → ../_shared/artifact-language.md.

Owner

The implementer (drives) + the reviewer who signed off in review.

Inputs

• <slug> — feature slug.
• Gate (hard refuse): a PASS review record (docs/features/<slug>/_review/) or, at minimum, an implemented + gate-green change. No review yet → «run review <slug> first».
• Read: spec.md (what to claim in the changelog), Accepted adr/ (decisions worth recording), the feature's commits (the SDD-Task history).

Protocol

1. Final verification — does it actually work. Re-run the detected gate (unit + integration where available + lint + vet). Then run the feature for real against its acceptance criteria — not just "tests pass": start the app / hit the endpoint / exercise the flow and observe the spec's outcomes (e.g. the default-on read returns defaults; an invalid value is rejected). Concretely: spot-check at least 3 of the most critical §5 AC outcomes (fewer only if the spec has fewer; scale the count with the feature's breadth), and for each name the AC id + the behaviour actually observed — «AC-03: posted the same apply twice → one discount row» — so the verification is checkable, not a vibe. If the app can't be run here (no runtime, no Docker), say so explicitly and record what was verified vs deferred — never claim verified-working when only tests compiled.
2. Write the changelog / KB note. From ./templates/changelog.md: what changed, why (link spec + the key ADRs), any migration/operational note (e.g. "adds migration 000023 — run it on deploy"), and how to use it. Partner-facing if the change is partner-facing.
3. Update the roadmap. In docs/roadmap.md (via roadmap) set the step's Status: shipped and add the date + the changelog link to Shipped (the PR link follows once the PR exists). This is the anti-drift hook: delivery itself keeps the roadmap current. (No roadmap yet → skip; it's optional.)
4. Commit before the PR. Ensure the work is on a feature branch (not the default branch). Then commit per ../_shared/write-and-commit.md — one commit per document: ship: <slug> changelog, ship: <slug> roadmap.md shipped (skipped when there is no roadmap). These commits land on the feature branch, so the PR carries them.
5. Prepare the PR. Draft the PR body from ./templates/pr-body.md: summary, the AC it satisfies, links to spec/sad/ADRs, the SDD-Task commit list, the test + verification evidence, and any migration/rollback note.
6. Detect the forge + propose the PR command. Inspect the remote: github.com → gh pr create; gitlab.com/self-hosted GitLab → glab mr create; otherwise print the branch + body for manual creation. Propose the command — do not run a push/PR to a shared remote without the user's go-ahead, and never merge to main.
7. Summary (terminal handoff). Emit the stage-handoff block per ../_shared/handoff.md (terminal variant) — What I did (verification result: verified-working / what was deferred and why; the roadmap update; the commits with short SHAs) + Review (the changelog path + the PR) + Run next = Done: the PR command (or URL if the user ran it) — merging to main is your call; there is no /sdd successor.

Definition of Done

• The gate was re-run and the feature was exercised against its AC (or the deferral was stated explicitly with the reason).
• A changelog / KB note exists, linking spec + ADRs; it (and the roadmap update) is committed on the feature branch before the PR command.
• A PR body is prepared and the forge-appropriate PR command proposed (work on a feature branch; main untouched).
• The run-the-feature verification (real run against the ACs, not just green tests) is this skill's structural self-check (../_shared/self-check.md); its result is reported in the handoff.

Anti-patterns

• "Tests pass" ≠ "it works". Run the actual feature against the spec's outcomes; green unit tests don't prove the wired system behaves.
• Claiming verified when you only compiled. If the runtime/Docker wasn't available, say what was deferred — don't overstate.
• Auto-merging to main / pushing to a shared remote unasked. Propose the PR; the merge is the team's call.
• A changelog that restates the diff. Say what changed and why (link the spec + ADR), plus the operational note (migrations, flags) — not a file list.
• Forgetting the migration/rollback note when the change includes one — the deployer needs it.

References & template

• ./templates/changelog.md — changelog / KB-note scaffold.
• ./templates/pr-body.md — PR description scaffold.