# v0.3.0 Codec Release Readiness Lessons

Date: 2026-06-10

## Lesson

Release-readiness work must separate readiness evidence from release execution.
For `0.3.0`, child issues can be verified and package dry-runs can pass while
the stable release is still incomplete until `develop` is promoted to `main`,
the tag is created from `main`, and the GitHub Release is published.

## Applied Rule

- Check all milestone child issues before claiming readiness.
- Record the exact `main` and `develop` commits because `main` is the stable
  release branch and `develop` is the development branch.
- Use `cargo publish --dry-run` only as packaging evidence; do not publish from
  a readiness PR.
- Keep deferred milestone boundaries explicit: compression stays in `0.4.0`,
  serialization stays in `0.5.0`.
