Publishing

smif publish handles packages whose version and changelog edits are already present. It does not depend on the changesets consumed by version.

smif publish --dry-run
smif publish

When generated GitHub Actions are enabled, merging the prepared release pull request triggers the recommended publish path through smif ci. Do not run a duplicate local publish for that release.

Planning and preflight

Semifold inspects current manifests and changelogs, orders packages through the workspace graph, expands configured commands, and performs every available registry pre-check before starting publish commands. Missing changelogs, versions already present, and package policy become explicit skip reasons.

A private package skips registry preflight and publish commands only. Effective private status uses package-level publish first and falls back to manifest or plugin discovery when it is omitted. A private package does not create a GitHub Release by default; with explicit github-release = true and --github-release, Semifold still creates its Release and uploads assets. The final status is a private-package skip only when no Forge work remains.

HTTP checks treat 200 as existing and 404 as missing; unexpected status codes fail safely. Command checks use the configured JSON Lines contract.

Execution

For each eligible package, Semifold runs configured pre-publish and publish commands in dependency order. The final report separates succeeded, skipped, failed, and not-started packages so a partial failure can be retried without guessing.

If a registry version already exists, its registry command is skipped. With GitHub Releases enabled, Semifold can still create a missing Release; an already existing Release does not re-upload missing assets.