latitude-release-discipline

Release guardrails prevent incorrect builds and tags by validating working tree cleanliness, correct branch checkout, accurate version strings, successful clean builds, and tag-to-commit alignment before publishing.

Release discipline is a strict validation process for software versioning needed to prevent costly mistakes like building from wrong branches, shipping debug artifacts, or mismatching version strings in build configurations.

Automated release checks can verify version strings in gradle.properties by comparing the expected version against the actual property value, ensuring the build output matches the intended release version before proceeding.

The best way to ensure a clean Git working tree before a release is to enforce a checklist that validates branch checkout, verifies no uncommitted changes, and confirms the working directory is ready for a clean build.

Release builds fail on tag misalignment because release guardrails validate that the Git tag accurately points to the exact commit used for the build, preventing incorrect or orphaned release artifacts from being uploaded.

Validating jar artifacts before a release involves checking the successful clean build output to ensure the jar contains the correct version and no unintended debug artifacts, safeguarding against shipping incorrect files.