fix(release): a changelog problem must never fail a release (+ rotate 0.3.5/0.3.6)

[jacderida]

Linear issue

V2-1142 — https://linear.app/autonominetwork/issue/V2-1142

Blocks V2-1134 (Release Train — 2026-09-01) / V2-1135 (Cut rc.1).

Risk tier

• T0 — docs / tooling / CI / pure UX-output. Repo CI only.
• T1 — client-only, no network-facing behavior change. CI + prod compat smoke.
• T2 — node/client logic with behavioral surface, no protocol/format/economics change. Dev testnet + ADR.
• T3 — protocol / storage format / payments / routing. T2 evidence + adversarial testing.

No Rust code is touched. Two files: the release workflow and CHANGELOG.md.

Compatibility

• Wire: none
• Storage: none
• API: none

Semver impact

• breaking
• feature
• fix

Test evidence

Both parts verified locally against the modified files; there is no runtime code to test.

Part 1 — the workflow. The extract changelog entry step was pulled out of the YAML
and run as a standalone script with the version substituted, once per case:

version input	Result
0.3.6-rc.1	exit 0, 10-line body — the ## [0.3.6] section
0.3.6-beta.1	exit 0, byte-identical to the rc.1 body
0.3.6	exit 0, byte-identical to the rc.1 body
0.3.5	exit 0, 14-line body — the five rotated entries
0.3.4	exit 0, 3-line body, unchanged from before
9.9.9 (no section)	exit 0, ::warning title=Missing changelog section::…, placeholder body naming 9.9.9

So the version-matched extraction is unchanged where a section exists, and the missing-section
case now warns and publishes instead of exit 1.

Also: yaml.safe_load parses the workflow (jobs build, sign-windows, sign-releases,
release), and bash -n on the extracted step passes.

Part 2 — the changelog.

• diff confirms the five moved entries are byte-identical to their pre-move text, with the
  single exception of (#140) → (#172).
• The last diff hunk ends at new line 26; ## [0.3.4] is at new line 38 — nothing at or below
  it changed.

New dependency

none

ADR

n/a (Tier 0)

Mitigation / rollback

git revert either commit independently — they touch disjoint files. Reverting the workflow
commit restores the fail-closed guard; reverting the changelog commit restores the previous
section layout. Neither affects any shipped artifact, only the text of a GitHub release body.

---

What's in here

Part 1 — a changelog problem must never fail a release. PR #183 added a fail-closed guard
to .github/workflows/ant-cli-release.yml. It did two separable things and only the first is
the V2-1107 fix: (1) extract the section matching the version being released rather than
blindly taking the first section — this is what stopped [Unreleased] shipping as every
release's notes, and it is kept; (2) exit 1 when that section is missing or empty —
removed. Dropping (2) regresses nothing V2-1107 was about: with (1) in place and no section
present the result is empty notes, not stale ones. The hard failure only converted "missing
notes" into "no release at all", which is strictly worse — the artifacts are fine and the
omission is fixable with gh release edit. The step now emits a ::warning:: annotation and a
placeholder body. ant-client was the last repo violating this rule; saorsa-transport's
changelog step is continue-on-error: true and ant-protocol's is a plain link.

Pre-tag enforcement is deliberately not added here. If we want it, it belongs on the
release-prep PR where a fix is cheap and nothing is blocked — a separate follow-up.

Part 2 — fix the changelog content. The five entries under [Unreleased] are 0.3.5's work
(promoted 2026-08-31, ad09c57); they move verbatim under ## [0.3.5] - 2026-08-31.
[Unreleased] becomes a bare heading and ## [0.3.6] - 2026-09-01 opens for this train.
(#140) → (#172) (#140 is a saorsa-transport PR; V2-1068's manifest gives #172), and #174
(NetworkHealth / V2-1037) gets the 0.3.5 entry it shipped without.

0.3.6's Fixed entry deliberately omits the saorsa-core / ant-protocol / ant-core version
triple: at rc.1 those are git+branch refs and only become literal pins at promotion, and one
## [0.3.6] section is shared by the rc, beta and stable builds. The behaviour and the upstream
PR are the durable parts.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01Nhag7h3fagNA6fqUg6gAmZ

[dirvine]

Reviewed exact head 75825ad6d8ef7e7e9a737fcd0cf5a6f980b8731a (lightweight workflow review as requested). Verified the workflow parses with PyYAML, the extracted shell passes bash -n, and local release-note extraction succeeds for 0.3.6-rc.1, 0.3.5, and a missing-section fallback (warning + placeholder, exit 0). Diff is clean; no blocking issues found.