Release Gate

Use this skill when an editor or imprint owner has a manuscript that might be ready to ship and needs its open issues sorted into blocker, fix if practical, next edition, or ignore, and needs a release recommendation with reasons.

This skill carries out the Release Gate and the Sales-Ready Definition of Done from The Editor’s Job After AI Is Tasteful Judgment, in "A Book Should Ship When It Is Sellable" and "Four Categories Decide What Blocks a Release." It does the sorting and the inspection. The person who owns the book makes the release decision. This skill ends with a recommendation and its reasons.

Before running

1. Get the manuscript source, the book bible, and the imprint spec.
2. Get the list of known open issues, if one exists.
3. Do not invent a reader signal. If a category call depends on reader evidence you do not have, say so.

Steps

1. Read the Sales-Ready Definition of Done in the book. Test each item against the manuscript and its build output. Record for each item: met, not met, or cannot tell, with the file and line that show it.
2. Add every known open issue and every issue found in step 1 to one list.
3. Put each issue in one category:
   • Blocker: a material factual error, a fabricated source, a broken argument, a serious contradiction, missing promised content, broken rendering, an unusable table or figure, an unresolved rights problem, a misleading claim, or a severe production defect.
   • Fix before release if practical: a meaningful, bounded improvement that is cheap.
   • Next edition: useful, and not worth delaying release.
   • Ignore: preference with no reader or commercial consequence.
4. Name the evidence for each blocker. If there is none, move it down and say why.
5. Check that the rendered pages were looked at by a person. A clean build does not count.

Conclude

End with one of these, and give the reasoning.

• Release. No blocker is open.
• Do not release. List each blocker, the smallest fix, and who owns it.
• Cannot tell. Name the evidence that would settle it.

Never state that a book is ready when a blocker is open. Never invent a source, a reader, or a market fact.