Release Checklist

Use this checklist before tagging a GitHub release or deploying the hosted docs.

Required Evidence

• artifacts/certification_report.json has summary status passed.
• The highest certification level is the current top level.
• artifacts/proof_dependency_graph.json is ready and binds all public artifacts.
• artifacts/discovery_manifest.json is ready and includes well-known paths for public surfaces.
• artifacts/provider_attribution_card.json discloses supported evidence channels and limitations.
• JSON artifacts validate against their schemas, including every public artifact listed in artifacts/discovery_manifest.json.
• The package builds from pyproject.toml, installs into an isolated virtual environment, the installed rdllm console script can run the bundled demo, rdllm-operator-acceptance can produce a final operator acceptance report, rdllm-operator-doctor can complete the installed self-test, rdllm-operator-bootstrap can create a complete operator bootstrap directory, rdllm-operator-profile can generate a ready operator profile from packaged templates, rdllm-operator-recovery can create and verify a recovery manifest, rdllm-service-config can generate a schema-valid service config from packaged templates, rdllm-service-response-verify can verify a saved attribution response, rdllm-source-footer-verify can verify a public source footer and copied output, rdllm-service-audit-verify can verify a hash-chained audit log, rdllm-operator-launch-gate can make a fail-closed go-live decision, and rdllm-operator-support-bundle can produce a redacted diagnostic bundle after wheel installation.
• tools/package_metadata_audit.py passes, proving public package metadata, console scripts, URLs, keywords, license, and production/stable classifier stay aligned with the production-readiness claim.
• The full test suite passes.
• tools/e2e_smoke.py passes, proving the bundled CLI demo, external-output attribution, source footer, signed receipt, public receipt, and L186 artifact readiness work together from the repository checkout.
• The hosted docs entry point exists at docs/index.html.
• docs/adopter_quickstart.html gives individuals, companies, institutions, governments, and public-sector operators a role-specific path from installed package self-test through launch gate, acceptance report, and redacted support bundle.
• tools/adopter_quickstart_audit.py passes, proving the quickstart remains rootless, copyable, role-complete, and runtime-probed through source-grounded attribution plus hash-chained service audit verification.
• The hosted well-known discovery entry point exists at docs/.well-known/rdllm.json, and every public artifact path advertised by artifacts/discovery_manifest.json is exported under docs/.well-known/rdllm/.
• Hosted discovery resolves every advertised artifact and schema path, and hosted artifact hashes match the discovery catalog.
• Hosted public artifacts and schema mirrors pass the privacy audit, proving they do not expose prompts, raw source text, private reasoning, secrets, customer records, payment details, or payout account data.
• Local Markdown and HTML documentation links resolve before static hosting.
• tools/github_readiness.py reports ready so GitHub workflows, Pages routing, source-package pruning, artifact sizes, and required public surfaces are checked before release.
• tools/production_readiness.py reports ready so production operator docs, deployment profile controls, runtime gates, security posture, governance, settlement, public-sector controls, and required proof artifacts are checked before production claims. Its repository-mode report must also include acceptance_matrix_status: passed, proving every supported operator role can bootstrap, emit a grounded response, bind audit/recovery evidence, and reach final acceptance. The report validates against docs/schemas/production_readiness_repository_report.schema.json and includes repository_report_hash.
• tools/operator_profile.py validate passes against a production profile and package smoke proves rdllm-operator-profile works after wheel installation, including its packaged verification schema, so operators can generate and verify deployment-specific readiness reports before release.
• tools/source_footer_verify.py passes against a standalone public source footer and copied output; package smoke proves rdllm-source-footer-verify works after wheel installation, so recipients can verify footer rows, hashes, deterministic handles, and copy/export preservation without receiving the full private response artifact.
• tools/operator_doctor.py passes and package smoke proves rdllm-operator-doctor works after wheel installation, including schema loading, so a new operator can prove packaged templates, bootstrap, runtime readiness, and response-footer and display verification without a repository checkout.
• tools/operator_launch_gate.py returns ready for a runtime-ready bootstrap, service config, profile, saved attribution response, and support-bundle output; package smoke proves rdllm-operator-launch-gate and its packaged schema load after wheel installation, so operators have one fail-closed go-live command and a verifiable JSON report before production display traffic.
• tools/operator_acceptance.py returns ready for launch readiness, saved response display verification, audit-log continuity, audit-to-response binding to a clean ready audit row, and recovery verification; package smoke proves rdllm-operator-acceptance can also verify the saved acceptance report and load its packaged verification schema after wheel installation, so operators can publish one final deployment acceptance report with a schema-valid verification result before production handoff.
• tools/operator_acceptance_matrix.py returns passed only when the installed workflow bootstraps, verifies, accepts, and role-checks individual, company, institution, government, and public-sector operator roots, so release evidence proves RDLLM is usable beyond one happy-path organization.
• tools/operator_recovery.py creates and verifies a recovery manifest for an operator root; package smoke proves rdllm-operator-recovery and its packaged schemas work after wheel installation, so operators can prove backup/restore files still match before incident, audit, or settlement recovery.
• tools/operator_support_bundle.py writes a redacted diagnostic bundle and package smoke proves rdllm-operator-support-bundle works after wheel installation, including schema loading and verification of a saved final acceptance report, so operators can escalate support or audit evidence without disclosing prompts, generated outputs, raw source text, tokens, API keys, payment account details, or exact local paths.
• tools/operator_bootstrap.py creates and verifies a ready bootstrap directory so a new operator can generate profile, report, service config, manifest, and local instructions in one command; package smoke also proves the installed command can load its packaged verification schema, export bundled sample corpus, and verify reference proof artifacts.
• tools/service_config.py validate passes against a service config and package smoke proves rdllm-service-config works after wheel installation and can load its packaged verification schema, so operators can generate and validate service configs without a repository checkout.
• tools/service_response_verify.py passes against a saved service response and package smoke proves rdllm-service-response-verify works after wheel installation and can load the packaged verification schema, so clients can verify the rendered answer, copied source footer, source-row/claim-row semantics, evidence span hashes, unresolved inline citation-marker rejection, marker-list diagnostics, and display_hash without running the service.
• tools/service_audit_verify.py passes against a hash-chained service audit log and rejects missing row fields, status/error-count contradictions, and footer/display binding gaps. Package smoke proves rdllm-service-audit-verify works after wheel installation and can load the packaged audit-entry and verification schemas, so operators can verify runtime audit continuity and clean/blocked audit semantics before incident, audit, or settlement review.
• tools/production_profile_matrix.py passes so individual, company, institution, government, public-sector, escrow-only, instruction-only, and processor-attested profile templates stay production-ready.
• tools/service_smoke.py passes so the installable HTTP service starts, reports readiness, rejects unauthenticated protected calls, attributes an answer, exposes metrics, and writes a hash-chained audit log.
• tools/service_load_smoke.py passes so concurrent attribution requests preserve readiness, metrics, and audit-log hash-chain continuity.
• tools/provider_live_smoke.py passes so the guarded provider-call path can invoke an OpenAI-compatible provider, hash the provider response, and attribute the generated answer before release.
• tools/security_abuse_smoke.py passes so protected routes fail closed for unauthorized access, invalid economics, request limits, provider failures, and rate limiting before release.
• tools/deployment_audit.py passes so Docker, Compose, Kubernetes, environment, and container service-config templates preserve secure deployment defaults.
• tools/provider_family_audit.py passes so provider-family names across runtime, adoption, binding, discovery, conformance, and production-admission layers map to the canonical provider taxonomy.
• README, contributing, security, license, and changelog files exist.

Commands

PYTHONPATH=src python tools/github_readiness.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/artifact_schema_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/hosting_export.py --write
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/hosting_export.py --check
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/hosted_surface_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/public_surface_privacy_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/docs_link_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/adopter_quickstart_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/package_metadata_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/package_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/production_readiness.py \
  --write-report /tmp/rdllm-repository-readiness.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/production_readiness.py \
  --verify-report /tmp/rdllm-repository-readiness.json
rdllm-production-readiness-verify \
  --report /tmp/rdllm-repository-readiness.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_doctor.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_support_bundle.py \
  --output /tmp/rdllm-support-bundle.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_bootstrap.py \
  --output-dir /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --operator-template company \
  --operator-name "Release RDLLM" \
  --security-contact security@example.com \
  --include-sample-corpus \
  --include-reference-artifacts
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_bootstrap.py \
  --verify-dir /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap
# Replace these response/display paths with artifacts from the deployment under
# test, and ensure RDLLM_SERVICE_TOKEN_SHA256 is set.
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_launch_gate.py \
  --profile /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap/production_readiness_profile.json \
  --service-config /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap/service_config.json \
  --service-root /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --bootstrap-dir /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --response /tmp/rdllm-service-response.json \
  --display-text /tmp/rdllm-copied-output.txt
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_recovery.py create \
  --root /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --output /tmp/rdllm-recovery-manifest.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_recovery.py verify \
  --manifest /tmp/rdllm-recovery-manifest.json \
  --root /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_profile.py validate \
  --profile examples/production_readiness_profile.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/service_config.py validate \
  --config examples/service_config.json
# Replace this path with the service audit log from the deployment under test.
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/service_audit_verify.py \
  --audit-log /tmp/rdllm-service-audit.jsonl
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_acceptance.py \
  --profile /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap/production_readiness_profile.json \
  --service-config /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap/service_config.json \
  --service-root /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --bootstrap-dir /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --response /tmp/rdllm-service-response.json \
  --display-text /tmp/rdllm-copied-output.txt \
  --audit-log /tmp/rdllm-service-audit.jsonl \
  --recovery-manifest /tmp/rdllm-recovery-manifest.json \
  --recovery-root /tmp/rdllm-operator-bootstrap \
  --output /tmp/rdllm-operator-acceptance.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_acceptance.py verify \
  --report /tmp/rdllm-operator-acceptance.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_support_bundle.py \
  --skip-doctor \
  --acceptance-report /tmp/rdllm-operator-acceptance.json \
  --output /tmp/rdllm-acceptance-support-bundle.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/operator_acceptance_matrix.py \
  --output-dir /tmp/rdllm-acceptance-matrix \
  --write-report /tmp/rdllm-operator-acceptance-matrix.json
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/production_profile_matrix.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/deployment_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/service_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/service_load_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/provider_live_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/security_abuse_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/provider_family_audit.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/e2e_smoke.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/provider_matrix.py --write
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/regenerate_reference_artifacts.py
PYTHONPATH=src python tools/ship_check.py

Optional package build:

python -m pip install -U build
python -m build

Release Notes

Each release should state:

• highest RDLLM certification level
• artifact hash for certification_report.json
• artifact hash for proof_dependency_graph.json
• provider families covered by the binding matrix
• new or changed public schemas
• production-readiness profile status
• known limitations
• references added or updated

Current Known Limitation

The repository is an open-source production baseline and proof framework. Live provider API keys, production billing exports, legal payment rails, and private customer data are intentionally not included. Production operators must bind their own provider telemetry, invoices, rights registries, payout rails, tenant identity, incident process, and jurisdiction-specific compliance controls through the published adapter, operator profile, and verification contracts.