ci: batch stable releases into one daily version (#919)

* ci: batch stable releases into one daily version

The stable release PR was auto-merged the instant it went green, so a
day with N bugfixes produced N patch releases (3.45.8 AND 3.45.9 on
2026-07-29 alone) — N upgrade notifications for stable users and N
full Docker build cycles.

Fixes now accumulate in release-please's rolling release PR and are
cut as ONE version per day by release-stable-daily.yml (18:00 UTC).
Approval/merge mechanics are unchanged from the inline step (#719):
approve as github-actions[bot], auto-merge as the PAT so the merge
triggers the tag-cutting run.

- Urgent fix? workflow_dispatch the daily job or merge the release PR
  by hand — the schedule is a default, not a gate.
- Beta is untouched: instant beta releases are load-bearing for
  same-day reporter verification.
- schedule only fires from the default branch; the stable copy of the
  new workflow is inert and exists to keep branches in sync.

* ci: harden the daily stable-release cut (review round)

- P1: the daily job runs on a schedule, so a fork PR can spoof the head
  branch name 'release-please--branches--stable' — gh --head matches the
  name only. Pin --base stable AND require isCrossRepository == false so
  a fork PR can never be approved+auto-merged with the release PAT.
- P2: this scheduled job is now the ONLY automatic stable cut, so the
  auto-merge-enable step no longer swallows failures (|| true); it fails
  loudly and verifies autoMergeRequest is actually set. A silently
  expired PAT would otherwise stop releases while the workflow stays
  green. Approve stays tolerant (re-approval can return non-zero).

* ci: accept an immediately-merged release PR as success (review round 2)

gh pr merge --auto merges immediately when required checks are already
green — the normal 18:00 case, since fixes land hours earlier and CI
passes. The autoMergeRequest verify then saw null on a MERGED PR and
failed the job on the happy path. Now: MERGED = success, pending
auto-merge = success, still-open-with-no-auto-merge = real failure.

* ci: read release-PR state + auto-merge in one snapshot (review round 3)

Two separate gh pr view calls raced: a pending auto-merge completing
between them made the first read OPEN and the second read null on the
now-merged PR, failing the job on a successful release. Fetch state and
autoMergeRequest together.

---------

Co-authored-by: Paul Nothaft <[email protected]>

.github/workflows/release-please.yml

@@ -27,32 +27,12 @@ jobs:
           manifest-file: .release-please-manifest.json
           target-branch: stable
 
-      # Auto-approve + auto-merge the open stable release PR. See the beta
-      # workflow for the full rationale. Skipped on the release-cutting run and
-      # whenever no PAT is configured.
-      - name: Auto-approve and enable auto-merge on the release PR
-        if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created != 'true' }}
-        env:
-          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
-          RELEASE_PAT: ${{ secrets.RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN }}
-          # No checkout in this job — set the repo explicitly so gh works
-          # without a git remote (same pattern as whatsnew, 2a5f0a8).
-          GH_REPO: ${{ github.repository }}
-        run: |
-          if [ -z "$RELEASE_PAT" ]; then
-            echo "RELEASE_PLEASE_TOKEN not set — skipping auto-merge (manual review still required)."
-            exit 0
-          fi
-          pr=$(gh pr list --head release-please--branches--stable --state open --json number --jq '.[0].number // empty')
-          if [ -n "$pr" ]; then
-            # Approve as github-actions[bot] (GITHUB_TOKEN, ≠ the PAT author) so it
-            # is a valid review; enable auto-merge as the PAT so the merge commit is
-            # attributed to a real identity and triggers the tag-cutting run (#719).
-            gh pr review "$pr" --approve --body "Automated approval — release-please version bump + changelog (#719)." || true
-            GH_TOKEN="$RELEASE_PAT" gh pr merge "$pr" --squash --auto || true
-          else
-            echo "No open release PR to auto-merge."
-          fi
+      # NOTE: stable release PRs are intentionally NOT auto-merged here
+      # anymore. Fixes accumulate in the rolling release PR and are cut as
+      # ONE patch version per day by release-stable-daily.yml (18:00 UTC,
+      # or on demand via workflow_dispatch / a manual merge of the release
+      # PR). Beta keeps instant releases — see release-please-beta.yml —
+      # because same-day reporter verification depends on it.
 
       - name: Output Release Info
         if: ${{ steps.release.outputs.release_created }}