Release And Exact Identity Contract

This document owns the distinction between publication versions and exact development identities. Schema identifiers, target architecture releases, and external tool versions remain identifiers in their own domains; none is a Wyst language or compiler semantic version.

# Terms

• A selected snapshot is the exact language contract selected by one source tree. Its wyst.language-snapshot.v1 identity changes with its canonical contract inputs and carries no publication claim.
• A compiler build is one compiler executable produced from an exact source, dependency, toolchain, target, feature, profile, flag, and release-state closure. Its wync.compiler-build.v1 identity is exact and is not a semantic version.
• A language release version and a compiler release version are independent semantic versions assigned only by publication. A development build has neither. A nominated candidate carries proposed values, which are not released values.
• A release is publication of the exact candidate artifacts and evidence accepted by a passing gate. It is an event, not a roadmap milestone.
• The release gate qualifies one explicitly nominated clean commit, tree, candidate build, proposed version pair, artifacts, and evidence. It validates the claims implemented in that snapshot and never consults roadmap completion.

# Canonical identities

Both roots use SHA-256 and wyst.length-prefixed-records.v1. A field is encoded as the little-endian u64 byte length of its ASCII field name, the name bytes, the little-endian u64 length of its value, and the value bytes. Consumers reject duplicate paths, noncanonical paths, missing files, symlinks, and an unknown algorithm or encoding.

The language root begins with domain = wyst.language-snapshot.v1 and encoding = wyst.length-prefixed-records.v1. It then contains, in ascending UTF-8 path order, file.path followed by file.digest for every entry selected by language-snapshot-inputs-v1.txt, including that manifest itself. Each leaf is sha256: plus lowercase SHA-256 of the exact file bytes. The set contains the vocabulary, manual authority, semantic database, catalogs, and bundled core declaration. It excludes ROADMAP.md, tests, coverage evidence, generated reports, publication history, and the computed root. Thus a meaning-affecting authority change changes the root, while test-only or publication-record changes do not pretend to change language meaning.

The compiler-build root begins with domain = wync.compiler-build.v1 and the same encoding field. Its ordered file records cover wync/Cargo.toml, wync/Cargo.lock, wync/build.rs, every regular non-symlink file under wync/src/ and wync/core/, the selected language inputs, and the exact generator, machine-authority, and execution-witness closures enumerated by wync/build.rs. Ordered fact records bind the language snapshot identity, rustc -vV, content digests and version output for the compiler/linker/archiver tools and configured Rust wrappers, Cargo host/target/profile/optimization/ debug/features/configuration, encoded Rust flags, and release state. Absolute checkout, output, and temporary paths are not inputs. The generated Rust constants and final executable bytes are outputs and are excluded, avoiding a self-referential digest. Publication history and the identity/release record schemas are also excluded: changing a record of an event must not change the identity of otherwise identical compiler bytes.

Two builds with the same canonical records have the same identity. A changed leaf, compiler/tool fact, target, feature, profile, flag, release state, or proposed version changes the compiler-build identity. Independent build copies may compare their executable digest in addition to the build identity; the embedded identity never claims to hash the bytes that contain it.

# Release version policy

Language and compiler deltas are classified independently from their respective previous published releases:

Version range	Incompatible change	Compatible feature	Compatible fix	Documentation, tests, or evidence only
< 1.0.0	next minor, patch zero	next minor, patch zero	next patch	unchanged
>= 1.0.0	next major, minor and patch zero	next minor, patch zero	next patch	unchanged

A compiler-only publication leaves the language version unchanged. A language change does not prescribe a compiler bump category: the compiler delta is classified independently. No roadmap edit, feature-state edit, schema revision, target release, or package-manifest version performs a semantic-version bump.

# Development, nomination, gate, and publication

Ordinary builds have releaseStatus = development, null language/compiler release versions, and exact snapshot/build identities. Supplying only part of a candidate tuple is a build error. The generic release tooling accepts a clean 40-hex commit, its exact tree, prior published versions, independently selected change classes, and proposed versions. It rejects a dirty or changing tree, wrong commit/tree, invalid or noncanonical semantic version, incorrect bump, failed command, mismatched candidate identity, or fuzz evidence for another snapshot.

wync identity emits wync.compilerIdentity.v1, validated by compiler-identity-v1.schema.json. Current generated and release-evidence projections are wync.generatedManifest.v1, wync.releaseEvidence.v1, wync.releaseHostFacts.v1, and wync.releaseArchiveFacts.v1; each carries the release status, nullable release versions, and both exact identities. The compiler-owned editor projection is wync.editorCatalog.v1 and carries the same tuple. Nomination, passing-candidate, and publication records use the closed schemas in release-records-v1.schema.json. The workflow is wync/tools/release-gate.sh nominate, verify, then the deliberately separate publish command; nomination and evidence destinations must be outside the repository so they cannot alter the nominated tree.

The gate builds the candidate once with the complete proposed tuple, records the candidate executable digest and exact identities, runs all portable, generated-authority, documentation/editor, interoperability, build-twice, runtime/QEMU, compiler-efficiency, and A64 conformance gates, authenticates the closed release-fuzz verdict for the same commit and tree, then rechecks the commit, tree, cleanliness, candidate bytes, and identities. A passing record is only publication-ready. The proposed versions become released only when maintainers publish those exact bytes and evidence and record the publication event. A failed or abandoned candidate changes no released version. Publication records the canonical tag wyst-release/language-v<language>/compiler-v<compiler> on the nominated commit. The publish command revalidates the passing record, independent bump policy, exact clean commit/tree, latest release baselines, and pre-existing canonical tag before it emits the publication record; creating that tag and publishing the gated bytes are deliberate maintainer actions, not effects of a roadmap edit. In the first later repository snapshot that records the event, maintainers preserve the gate and publication records below design/release-records/<tag>/, append the authenticated entry to release-history.json, and advance each baseline to the corresponding value (including an unchanged value for the side whose delta was none). History verification rejects a tag, record linkage, or terminal baseline that does not match. This bookkeeping records a publication already made; it does not create one by editing the repository.

Historical tags, peeled commits, and source trees are recorded in release-history.json. Those bounded records retain the pre-separation unified version labels where they describe actual past publication; they do not retroactively claim independent historical language and compiler versions. Current compiler, report, artifact, cache, benchmark, debug, LSP, or editor data must not reuse them as an exact identity.