[release-readiness] Add RC release support

[PureWeen]

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Description of Change

Adds first-class Release Candidate support to the .NET MAUI release-readiness workflow.

The workflow now:

• discovers strict release/<major>.0.<band>xx-rc<N> branches and RC tags;
• tracks RC candidate, in-flight, shipped, and cut-before-bump transitions without inventing Preview 8;
• derives the matching SDK channel, such as .NET 11.0.1xx SDK RC 1;
• validates the outward MAUI default-channel mapping independently from inbound Android and macOS/iOS subscriptions;
• requires RC subscriptions to be enabled and on the matching channel while preserving Preview's existing non-blocking subscription severity;
• keeps VMR reconciliation local and blocks only an enabled dotnet/dotnet subscription;
• emits missing mappings as explicit blockers in JSON and Markdown;
• routes RC trackers through workflow reporting and release-handoff generation;
• filters release-relevant issues by the active Preview/RC stage.

Root Cause

Tracker discovery and the prerelease report engine only understood Preview branches. RC branches were ignored or rejected, so the normal report could not expose a missing mapping such as:

release/11.0.1xx-rc1 → .NET 11.0.1xx SDK RC 1

The existing dependency-flow presentation also did not deterministically separate MAUI's outward default-channel mapping from Android/macOS-iOS inbound subscriptions and local VMR reconciliation.

Key Technical Details

• Outward flow: MAUI branch builds require an enabled default-channel mapping to the matching Preview/RC SDK channel.
• Inbound flow: Android and macOS/iOS subscriptions are checked separately for target branch, channel, and enabled state.
• VMR: no enabled dotnet/dotnet subscription is expected; the official SDK/runtime pin is reconciled locally.
• CLI behavior: the exact darc get-subscriptions empty-result response (exit 42 plus No subscriptions found matching the specified criteria.) is normalized to an empty successful query so missing RC subscriptions become deterministic blockers rather than UNKNOWN.
• Public safety: environments without authenticated darc continue to report dependency-flow evidence as UNKNOWN instead of guessing.

Tests

• pwsh -NoProfile -File .github/skills/release-readiness/tests/Test-ReleaseReadiness.ps1
  • 2,466 passed, 0 failed
• Live RC1 report validation confirmed the generated JSON and Markdown identify the missing default-channel mapping as BLOCKED while reporting the Android/macOS-iOS subscriptions and local VMR model separately.
• Live enabled Preview mapping validation confirmed existing Preview mapping detection remains READY.
• Focused fixtures cover RC branch/tag discovery, RC1/RC2 transitions, channel derivation, mapping missing/present, subscription state and severity, VMR enabled/disabled behavior, stage-aware issue filtering, and exact darc empty-result handling.

Limitations

RC package-level consumer installability remains UNKNOWN until the workload-set package resolver supports RC package identities.

Issues Fixed

N/A — release tooling enhancement.

[github-actions]

🚀 Dogfood this PR with:

⚠️ WARNING: Do not do this without first carefully reviewing the code of this PR to satisfy yourself it is safe.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dotnet/maui/main/eng/scripts/get-maui-pr.sh | bash -s -- 37856

Or

• Run remotely in PowerShell:

iex "& { $(irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dotnet/maui/main/eng/scripts/get-maui-pr.ps1) } 37856"

[azure-pipelines]

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds first-class Release Candidate (RC) support to the .github/skills/release-readiness tooling and the scheduled workflow, so RC branches/tags are discovered, tracked, and reported distinctly from Preview without “inventing” an extra Preview stage.

Changes:

• Extend tracker discovery + workflow matrix/dispatch to support branchType: rc and rcNumber.
• Update Get-PreviewReadiness.ps1 to treat Preview/RC as a unified “prerelease” lane with RC-specific checks (version metadata, dependency-flow wiring) and stage-aware issue filtering.
• Update handoff generation, documentation, and tests to cover RC lifecycle transitions and dependency-flow behaviors.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.github/workflows/release-readiness.yml	Adds rc handling in the matrix payload and dispatches RC trackers through Get-PreviewReadiness.ps1.
.github/skills/release-readiness/tests/Test-ReleaseReadiness.ps1	Adds RC branch/tag contract tests, RC window transition tests, and prerelease dependency-flow wiring tests.
.github/skills/release-readiness/SKILL.md	Documents RC as a first-class prerelease lane and updates usage guidance accordingly.
.github/skills/release-readiness/scripts/New-ReleaseHandoff.ps1	Supports RC readiness JSON and renders RC names/sanitization alongside Preview/SR.
.github/skills/release-readiness/scripts/Get-PreviewReadiness.ps1	Expands prerelease parsing from Preview-only to Preview/RC and adds RC-specific validations and reporting fields.
.github/skills/release-readiness/scripts/Find-ReleaseReadinessTrackers.ps1	Adds strict RC branch/tag discovery and emits RC trackers/candidates in a dedicated lane.
.github/agents/release-readiness-agent.agent.md	Routes release/<major>.0.1xx-rc<N> to the prerelease lane (Get-PreviewReadiness.ps1).

Review details

Suppressed comments (1)

.github/skills/release-readiness/scripts/Get-PreviewReadiness.ps1:891

• The comment header for Test-PrereleaseMilestoneExists still describes “THIS preview” and only uses preview-shaped examples, even though the function now handles both Preview and RC milestones. Updating the synopsis/example will make the intent clearer and avoid confusion when reading RC reports.

        Checks whether the GitHub milestone for THIS preview
        (e.g. ".NET 11.0-preview7") exists in the repo.
    .DESCRIPTION
        A preview release-readiness tracker and its milestone are coupled: if
        a tracker exists, the milestone must exist right away — not deferred to

• Files reviewed: 7/7 changed files
• Comments generated: 1
• Review effort level: Lite

[github-actions]

Skill Validation Results

@PureWeen — new skill validation results are available based on this last commit: b0fa8e8.
To request a fresh validation after new comments or commits, comment /evaluate-skills.

✅ Skill Validation Results — b0fa8e8 · [release-readiness] Add RC release support · 2026-08-26T21:05:50Z

✅ Static Checks Passed

Skills: 24 | Eval specs linted: 16

Full lint output

── .github/skills/agentic-labeler/tests/eval.vally.yaml
npm warn EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm warn EBADENGINE   package: '@microsoft/vally-cli@0.12.0',
npm warn EBADENGINE   required: { npm: '>=11.11.1', node: '>=22.0.0' },
npm warn EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v22.23.2', npm: '10.9.8' }
npm warn EBADENGINE }
npm warn EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm warn EBADENGINE   package: '@microsoft/vally@0.12.0',
npm warn EBADENGINE   required: { npm: '>=11.11.1', node: '>=22.0.0' },
npm warn EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v22.23.2', npm: '10.9.8' }
npm warn EBADENGINE }
npm warn EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm warn EBADENGINE   package: '@microsoft/vally-server@0.12.0',
npm warn EBADENGINE   required: { npm: '>=11.11.1', node: '>=22.0.0' },
npm warn EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v22.23.2', npm: '10.9.8' }
npm warn EBADENGINE }
Vally collects pseudonymous usage telemetry (command name, version, outcome, duration, persistent device identifier (when available), and coarse OS/runtime info) to improve the product. No prompts, datasets, file paths, or arguments are collected.
Opt out any time by setting VALLY_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1.
Learn more: https://aka.ms/vally/telemetry
✔ .github/skills/agentic-labeler/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/analyze-sessions/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/analyze-sessions/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/ci-fix/tests/eval.ownership.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/ci-fix/tests/eval.ownership.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/ci-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/ci-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.inline-findings.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.inline-findings.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.producer-trace.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.producer-trace.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.trim-aot.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.trim-aot.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/hermeticity.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/hermeticity.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/code-review/tests/soak.capability.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/code-review/tests/soak.capability.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/evaluate-pr-tests/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/evaluate-pr-tests/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/pr-review/tests/eval.gh-auth.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/pr-review/tests/eval.gh-auth.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/try-fix/tests/eval.restore.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/try-fix/tests/eval.restore.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/try-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/try-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/verify-tests-fail-without-fix/tests/eval.protocol.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/verify-tests-fail-without-fix/tests/eval.protocol.vally.yaml is valid
── .github/skills/verify-tests-fail-without-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml
✔ .github/skills/verify-tests-fail-without-fix/tests/eval.vally.yaml is valid

⏭️ LLM Evaluation: Skipped

No changed skills with eval specs found.

🔍 Full results and investigation steps