paperclip/doc/preview-release-artifacts.md

Preview deployment artifacts

The preview channel in .github/workflows/release.yml builds deployment artifacts for one immutable source commit. It does not create a GitHub release, move a source branch, or advance any stable, beta, nightly, or canary alias.

Dispatch release.yml on master with these inputs:

Input	Value
channel	preview
source_ref	Full lowercase 40-character commit SHA in this repository
request_id	UUID v4 identifying the operator's deployment request
preview_migrator	true when exact-source DB/shared packages are needed
dry_run	false

The workflow title is Stack deploy <request_id> build. Consumers must find a run by this identity, not by the latest run. Preview builds reject workflow definitions that do not run from master.

Outputs and reuse

The image uses ghcr.io/paperclipai/paperclip:sha-<FULL_SHA>-cloud. Full-SHA tags keep separate commits with the same short prefix isolated. Normal release images retain their existing short-tag convention. Build arguments carry the full commit SHA. Preview builds do not import or overwrite the shared release cache or release aliases. Missing images are built for Linux amd64, matching managed deployments.

When requested, both @paperclipai/shared and @paperclipai/db use 0.0.0-preview.g<FULL_SHA>. Workspace dependencies are pinned to exact versions. Packages carry gitHead and paperclipPreviewCommit source identity. npm publishes them under the preview dist-tag only. Normal consumers of latest or canary continue to select normal releases.

Registry 404 responses mean missing artifacts. Authentication errors, outages, or existing package identity mismatches fail the workflow. Retries reuse matching published artifacts, including a shared package published before a DB publish failure. Allow npm's visibility polling to finish before retrying.

The final stack-deploy-result artifact contains result.json with contract version 1, request ID, SHA, stage build, and status ready. It expires after 30 days. This confirms artifact availability; it does not certify a tenant deploy.

Publishing configuration and isolation

Configure npm trusted publishing for both packages with repository paperclipai/paperclip, workflow release.yml, and environment npm-canary. The image publisher uses the same environment, whose deployment branch policy permits only master. Both publishers also check the workflow ref before running. This uses the existing publisher identity rather than requiring another workflow registration. The job uses npm with OIDC trusted publishing support and provenance. The environment's existing protections still apply.

Package compilation runs in a separate job with read-only repository access and no npm, cloud-admin, or provider credentials. Trusted tooling from master packs the requested source checkout. The existing bundled-package helper takes patch configuration from that source checkout. Build artifacts contain only the two fixed package tarballs.

Publishing runs on a fresh runner with trusted tooling, without a checkout of the requested branch. It checks package identity and exact dependencies, rejects archive path aliases, and publishes with lifecycle scripts disabled and an explicit registry and dist-tag. Image builds also run without registry write access and export a Docker archive. A separate trusted publisher loads that archive as data, verifies its full revision, platform, and image ID, then pushes only the SHA tag. It never runs the image. Dependency resolution disables scripts and pnpmfile hooks. Preview actions are pinned to full commit SHAs.

The deploying control plane must independently verify package integrity, source identity, SQL and migration journal contents, and schema compatibility. Publish this workflow support before enabling an operator CLI that depends on it. Test normal release selection and a new migration-bearing branch in staging before allowing production use.

Local checks

node --test scripts/preview-artifacts.test.mjs
pnpm test:release-registry
pnpm -r typecheck
pnpm test:run
pnpm build

For a package build without publishing, install dependencies in a disposable checkout at an exact commit, then use the trusted helper:

node scripts/preview-artifacts.mjs pack /path/to/source /path/to/output FULL_SHA

This executes source build scripts. Keep output outside the repository and use an environment without publishing or cloud-admin credentials.