Hi, We already have a skill to check releases, but I thought about it and decided to create an improved hybrid version.
The mechanical part is a Python script, check_rc.py, using the standard library plus GPG, with no MCP and no third-party packages. It covers signatures, checksums, naming, DISCLAIMER, LICENSE and NOTICE, headers, bundled third-party code, binaries, and the archive against the git tag. The same archive gives the same findings every time, so that part may be useful on its own. The rest of the skill uses six read-only MCP servers: Policy MCP for the current rules and the Incubator mail and release MCPs for the podling's own vote history and what it released before, see the README for the full list. None of the MCPs are required, and the review still works without them, but at reduced coverage. Findings are graded. A fail is a fact that needs no judgment. A candidate is something a person has to look at, and most turn out to be fine. It reports for a person and never votes. There are no evals, but there is a regression test, and I ran it blind over 50 release candidates from 40 podlings between January 2024 and September 2026, reading only the opening vote email before comparing with the thread. The results: 46 correct calls, one partial, two missed a real blocker, and one false blocker. So it won't catch everything, but it also surfaced 13 problems nobody raised, and four releases passed their vote carrying a clear policy violation. So it seems useful to me. Code is here: https://github.com/apache/incubator/tree/master/tools/skills/releasecheck Each run consumes between 60k and 90k tokens. Kind regards, Justin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
