[macx]

What and why

Every merge to main started two workflows: ci (full run) and release (only the plan job, which then found "not a release commit"). A release commit even ran the full CI twice: once from ci.yml (push) and once inside release.yml (reusable ci.yml before releasing). Requested by the maintainer.

• One rule for both workflows: new scripts/release-decision.sh decides whether a commit is released: official repository (macx/pickup), a push that changes VERSION against its parent, and the tag vX.Y.Z does not exist yet; or a manual run of release.yml.
• release.yml: push to main has paths: [VERSION], and the plan job uses the shared rule. Every release commit from prepare-release bumps VERSION. workflow_dispatch (re-run after a failure) is unchanged.
• ci.yml: a small route job (ubuntu) applies the same rule to its own push run; all eight jobs need it and are skipped only when release.yml will run CI for the commit. Inside the call from release.yml (github.workflow is release), and for pull requests, the schedule and manual runs, every job runs as before. Forks with CI enabled never match the rule, so their CI always runs.
• Result: one CI run per commit; release only shows up for real releases. docs/RELEASING.md updated.

How it was tested

• actionlint on all workflows, scripts/pin-actions.sh --check, shellcheck, scripts/security-checks.sh
• scripts/release-decision.sh exercised in a throwaway worktree: normal push, fork, manual run with existing tag, release commit 0.1.0 → 0.2.0, same commit in a fork, pull_request event, VERSION changed but tag exists
• Not exercisable before merging: the push and release paths only run on main. To check after merging: the next normal merge starts only ci; the next release commit starts release (with CI inside) and skips the jobs of the push run of ci.
• Bluetooth changes: none

Checklist

• No real phone numbers, names, Bluetooth addresses or secrets
• No network access, no new third-party runtime dependency
• Workflows changed at the maintainer's request

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The release trigger and CI skip conditions disagree, leaving supported release commits without replacement CI or automatic publication.

1 open issue

• Align release and CI skip conditions · New

What changed in this PR

This PR aims to avoid duplicate CI runs in Pickup’s release process and prevent release workflows from starting on ordinary pushes.

Changes:

• Restricts automatic release runs to pushes that change VERSION.
• Skips standalone push-CI jobs for release-prefixed commits, relying on reusable CI from the release workflow.
• Documents the intended CI and release behavior.

File	Description
docs/​RELEASING.md	Documents CI deduplication and the release trigger.
.github/​workflows/​release.yml	Adds the VERSION push-path filter.
.github/​workflows/​ci.yml	Adds release-commit skip conditions to all eight jobs.

_{Review effort: Balanced}