kikashy · Oct 28, 2026 · Oct 28, 2026 · Oct 28, 2026 · Oct 28, 2026 · Oct 28, 2026
diff --git a/.github/ci-evidence.json b/.github/ci-evidence.json
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
     "release tag, commit, clean tree, artifact pins and Policy tag history (tools/build_release.py)",
     "immutable release bundles and checksums",
     "release notes",
-    "draft prerelease",
+    "draft release, marked pre-release for every tag outside vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH",
     "bundle attestation"
   ],
   "profiles": {

diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ jobs:
   # run again when the evidence is reused; a refusal fails the release, and the fresh route is the
   # operator's choice. A tag the gate does not admit (a release candidate, a policy-v tag) reuses
   # nothing: the release job runs the whole suite itself, as before. The tag, milestone, Policy,
-  # bundle, notes, prerelease and attestation steps of the release job stay fresh either way.
+  # bundle, notes, draft and attestation steps of the release job stay fresh either way.
   evidence:
     name: CI evidence at the tag
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
@@ -28,9 +28,11 @@ jobs:
       # Reading this repository's workflow runs, jobs and artifacts.
       actions: read
     # true only when the gate exited 0 and its decision record says reuse; anything else, an empty
-    # value included, makes the release job run the whole suite.
+    # value included, makes the release job run the whole suite. route is the tag grammar alone
+    # (evidence for vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, fresh otherwise); the draft step reads it, not the evidence.
     outputs:
       reuse: ${{ steps.reused.outputs.reuse }}
+      route: ${{ steps.route.outputs.route }}
     steps:
       # The gate's tag grammar: vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH in ASCII digits, no leading zeroes, nothing after.
       - name: Choose reuse or the whole suite at the tag
@@ -191,18 +193,26 @@ jobs:
           --commit "${GITHUB_SHA}"
           --output dist
 
-      - name: Create draft prerelease
+      # A plain vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH tag is drafted as a release the maintainer publishes. Every other
+      # tag (a release candidate, a policy-v tag), and any route value but evidence, is drafted as a
+      # pre-release.
+      - name: Create draft release
         shell: bash
         run: |
+          prerelease=(--prerelease)
+          if [[ "${RELEASE_ROUTE}" == "evidence" ]]; then
+            prerelease=()
+          fi
           gh release create "${GITHUB_REF_NAME}" \
             dist/* \
             --draft \
-            --prerelease \
+            "${prerelease[@]}" \
             --verify-tag \
             --title "Judgment Pack Specification ${GITHUB_REF_NAME}" \
             --notes-file "releases/${GITHUB_REF_NAME}.md"
         env:
           GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+          RELEASE_ROUTE: ${{ needs.evidence.outputs.route }}
 
       - name: Attest release bundles
         uses: actions/attest@f7c74d28b9d84cb8768d0b8ca14a4bac6ef463e6 # v4.2.0

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
diff --git a/VERSIONING.md b/VERSIONING.md
@@ -54,6 +54,12 @@ tooling can read the renamed manifest status. The unsuffixed `v0.3.0` tag is the
 companion's `policy-v<releaseVersion>-draft.N` route remains independent and is not replaced by this
 Core convention.
 
+Across the project, `vX.Y.Z-rc.N` is a candidate of the complete milestone that graduates to
+`vX.Y.Z` with no change to its normative artifacts (schemas, corpus, Core and companion rules);
+text and tooling that named the candidate distribution are updated to name the release, and the
+release's notes list those changes. `vX.Y.Z-alpha.N`, used by the implementations and never by this
+repository's Core route, is a scoped cut for a named consumer that never graduates.
+
 That first candidate is a distribution of the proposed exact `specVersion` `0.3.0` artifacts;
 `0.3.0-rc.1` is its distribution identity, not a pack version selector. Its closed mapping at
 `releases/v0.3.0-rc.1.json` is required by the builder. Both manifests remain maturity `draft`:

diff --git a/docs/releases/v0.3.0.md b/docs/releases/v0.3.0.md
@@ -1,83 +1,6 @@
 # v0.3.0
 
-`0.3.0`, tagged `v0.3.0`, is the first Core release whose `specVersion` has no `-draft` suffix.
-The released `0.2.0-draft` identifier and its tag keep their names. Before the release, one
-`v0.3.0-rc.1` GitHub pre-release gives adopters about a week to verify that their tooling reads the
-manifest maturity `status` as `draft` rather than the retired `research-preview` value.
-
-## Included work
-
-- Core escalation routes from RFC 0025: an exclusive single target or bounded conditional routes,
-  with routed handoff provenance and complete retained reasons.
-- The `base` and `extended` document ceiling profiles from RFC 0026, including reader negotiation
-  and explicit refusal of an unsupported profile.
-- The non-normative rule-overlap check and its closed `JPS-RULES-OVERLAP` diagnostic.
-- RFC 0020's bulk amendment: contributing-rule output records, disposition summaries, reproducible
-  seeded samples, drift comparison, and the closed workflow schema and hand-written fixture that
-  verify those records.
-- RFC 0020's later-sibling rule, limited to instances admitted for acquisition so an admission
-  failure retains its own finding.
-- Dialect data-quality conversions, reconciliation, typed research-result states, lineage,
-  versioned source profiles, resolved settings, and byte-retaining replay contracts.
-- RFC 0022's alignment with the landed composition decisions for subgraph bounds, routed handoff
-  provenance, dialect-owned remapping, and cross-installation packaging.
-
-## Versioning and maturity
-
-Pre-`1.0.0` Core releases may be incompatible when their notes record the change and give a
-`specVersion` migration note. Conformance manifest `status` is now the independent maturity ladder
-`draft`, `candidate`, and `release`; `0.3.0` remains `draft`. The `release` maturity is reserved for
-the `1.0.0` standards claim after the governance acceptance evidence is met and recorded. Production
-use does not by itself establish that claim.
-
-The Policy companion remains on its independent `policy-v1.0.0-draft.N` route until that format's
-first release and is not renamed by the Core scheme change.
-
-RFC 0024 and the Policy companion's record land in the release if merged before the tag.
-
-## Migration note
-
-Packs targeting this release declare exact `specVersion` `0.3.0`. Reader and writer compatibility
-is not inferred from a shared `0.x` prefix: historical readers reject this selector, and `0.3.0`
-profiles and routed escalations require corresponding reader support. Writers targeting
-`0.2.0-draft` must obey its historical schema, which admits neither `profile` nor escalation `routes`.
-Multiple-version readers dispatch on the complete selector; they do not apply current rules to old
-selectors or rewrite old documents on read.
-
-Carrier admission is tighter: Unicode escapes in the UTF-16 surrogate range must form well-formed
-surrogate pairs.
-For example, a lone `\uD800` title escape accepted by the published `0.2.0-draft` carrier and
-structural schema is malformed in `0.3.0`. A version-only edit cannot repair those bytes. The author
-must provide the intended scalar or valid surrogate pair; automatic replacement would lose meaning.
-
-Selector-only migration is sufficient only for documents that already meet the current carrier,
-structural and semantic requirements. Revalidate profile/ceiling support and escalation shapes;
-otherwise review and edit the content deliberately. No general automatic migration or unchanged
-conformance-verdict promise is made. Re-declaration also selects the exact new evaluator semantics
-and corpus, not inherited evaluator conformance. The Runtime must vendor the exact resulting
-artifacts beside historical releases and retain exact-selector dispatch; it must not overwrite the
-existing `0.2.0-draft` artifacts.
-
-## Preserved historical schema identities
-
-Historical resources come from immutable source tags, not mutable pre-repin `main`:
-`v0.1.0-draft` is commit `80958f50c851e9809cb8036a23622391cf437c99`, and `v0.2.0-draft` is
-commit `0f30fd7b2c3fd7792249c8f3c5335b9e697a2c7a`. The two `0.1.0-draft` resources retain the
-already documented neutral-domain `$id` substitution and no other byte change, as recorded in the
-[0.2.0-draft preservation note](../../releases/v0.2.0-draft.md#what-preserved-means-for-the-010-draft-schemas).
-The three `0.2.0-draft` resources are byte-identical to their original tagged forms, including
-`research-preview` maturity and the original structural rules. Their historical identities remain
-published; new maturity values and profile/routes rules apply only to the current resources.
-
-| Preserved file | Original tagged SHA-256 | Preserved SHA-256 |
-| --- | --- | --- |
-| `schema/judgment-pack-core-0.1.0-draft.schema.json` | `81f6986edc8d2bbf6f49c28a9bbec4f9054f7c72cab5a5028130e01d2e7274d8` | `c65c559db33d19d2f327858635266fca7fcc049fb75083a7a8d47517e27224fc` |
-| `schema/conformance-manifest-0.1.0-draft.schema.json` | `fa3f55f53712253551d6374ff3f06621e936b56c04dabd399703bbb05285c740` | `f073bde8f6f2189edd0334c81c03fecfacf8fae2bd49305a788c75550dcbc2c5` |
-| `schema/judgment-pack-core-0.2.0-draft.schema.json` | `847910902fa202d9fb3a97062071b532f11649031c9dad32490bf191dca5b3b5` | `847910902fa202d9fb3a97062071b532f11649031c9dad32490bf191dca5b3b5` |
-| `schema/conformance-manifest-0.2.0-draft.schema.json` | `e531a1a89f188dc12ff682263fdd6a0022bcfb6977dfeb642dd05fcbec5e0723` | `e531a1a89f188dc12ff682263fdd6a0022bcfb6977dfeb642dd05fcbec5e0723` |
-| `schema/conformance-evaluation-manifest-0.2.0-draft.schema.json` | `142c30a33c7272cff5e85522b95d36316d2e195565bc5bef6c04a999e0da51f6` | `142c30a33c7272cff5e85522b95d36316d2e195565bc5bef6c04a999e0da51f6` |
-
-The evaluation manifest schema remains at
-`https://judgmentpack.org/schema/0.2.0-draft/conformance/evaluation/manifest.schema.json`;
-the historical Core and document-manifest `$id` paths also remain served. The Core bundles carry
-all five preserved resources. Separately pinned Policy consumer bytes and format digests are unchanged.
+The `0.3.0` release notes are now the immutable [`releases/v0.3.0.md`](../../releases/v0.3.0.md):
+the two release candidates, the included work, the selected retained-column leaf, versioning and
+maturity, the migration note, the preserved historical schema identities, what the release pins,
+and the checks run for it.