Release signing ceremony

Stable releases use GitHub OIDC signing, followed by maintainer review of a signed draft and explicit publication of its exact manifest hash. The laptop stays online. Routine Cosign signing needs neither USB media nor the long-lived primary/recovery keys. macOS distribution separately uses Apple credentials.

The online release guide is the operator entry point. The Apple signing guide covers Developer ID credentials, notarized DMGs, and Homebrew tap installation. Stable and nightly macOS artifacts require Apple signing before final artifact hashing and Cosign signing. The design combines SOPS-style keyless signing and provenance with OpenBao-style review before publication. It does not deploy SOPS or an OpenBao server.

Implementation is available; stable policy activation and 1.0 publication are still pending. The owner delayed 1.0 for design work. A successful test or a signed draft does not mean a release is public.

One-time trust bootstrapCopy Anchor Link

The existing recovery root remains pinned. Its encrypted local custody was created online, as recorded in the bootstrap record. One recovery signature authorizes the stable workflow’s exact identity and its limited authority to add release records. Recovery custody is needed again for policy changes, revocation and recovery, not routine releases.

After the implementation merges, follow one-time setup. Do not replace the deployed root or delete the nightly trust files.

Per-release ceremonyCopy Anchor Link

From a clean checkout of current main, after acceptance and design approval:

scripts/release/ceremony.sh build VERSION
scripts/release/ceremony.sh review VERSION
scripts/release/ceremony.sh publish VERSION REVIEWED_MANIFEST_SHA256
scripts/release/ceremony.sh sync-trust VERSION

Wait for the draft build before review, inspect the release notes and evidence, and wait for local publication verification before syncing trust. Merge the trust PR after review and green CI before the next release. The complete guide explains each boundary and retry behavior.

The manifest authenticates the six platform archives, two macOS disk images, eight Linux packages, installer, standalone verifiers, image/chart digest evidence, SBOMs, compatibility artifacts and first-party build provenance. Metadata and catalog signatures bind the release to recovery-authorized policy and monotonic trust state. Hash and signature checks establish identity and consistency; they do not prove that a compromised authorized workflow built honest source.

Installers verify the downloaded verifier against its embedded hash before execution. Preserve the verifier’s cross-release state file: removing it loses remembered rollback protection. An older authorized release requires explicit historical verification; it cannot be presented as latest.

Nightlies, legacy releases and incident recoveryCopy Anchor Link

Signed nightlies retain their separate workflow policy. Historical keyed releases retain their primary-key and revocation checks. The legacy offline runbook documents that former flow; ceremony.sh --offline is an explicit compatibility entry point.

The online guide covers Vaultwarden, independent backups and recovery. The stable workflow trust ADR records authority boundaries and accepted compromises.