Enforce a current pre-tag release QA gate

[janicduplessis]

Description

PR #77 proposed a useful pre-tag QA gate, but its branch and protocol had fallen behind the current CLI, package layout, runtime state, cache suites, and launch-status contracts. This rebuilds that gate from current main and closes #91.

Solution

The release process now prepares the final version, lockfile, skill stamp, and tarballs before running the repository's complete preflight and native/manual QA. It pushes the proven release commit without a tag, waits for blocking CI on that exact SHA, and only then creates the publishing tag.

The preflight includes formatting, linting, build, type checking, dead-code checks, unit and fast E2E tests, runtime-floor smoke coverage, and CLI loading checks.

A change-sensitive pre-tag matrix maps lifecycle, cache, project-shape, remote, release-swap, Android flavor, and launch-status changes to the native or manual evidence they require. The field protocol delegates cache assertions to the machine-readable cache suite and keeps manual work focused on real repositories, authenticated providers, release swaps, flavors, and launch UX. It also documents the current four-state launch contract, safe throwaway-fixture preparation, severity gates, skip reporting, and evidence requirements.

The native loop now accepts the valid "bundling" launch state and fails closed when its cached-build no-compile log evidence is missing.

The supporting E2E/CI documentation now matches the current pnpm/Vitest workspace, Node 22/24 repository matrix, exact Node 20.19.4 published-runtime job, and resolved cache findings.

Closes #91.

Test plan

• Run pnpm run format:check.
• Run pnpm run lint.
• Run pnpm run build.
• Run pnpm run typecheck.
• Run pnpm run knip.
• Run pnpm run test:runtime.
• Run node packages/stim-cli/dist/cli.mjs --help and --version.
• Run pnpm test (2,256 passing; one timing-sensitive lock-race test passed on isolated and full rerun).
• Run pnpm run test:e2e (12 passing).
• Run all four native loop/cache harness variants with --dry-run.
• Verify git diff --check.
• Inspect the native-suite command surfaces, CI workflows, and package manifests against the updated protocol. Exact Node 20.19.4 runtime-floor proof remains the blocking CI job.