feat(ci): add release-please and improve renovate auto-merge

[JacobPEvans]

Summary

• Adds release-please for automated changelog generation and GitHub releases on merge to main
• Updates renovate.json to auto-merge actions/* GitHub Actions (matching pattern from ai-assistant-instructions)

Release Please Setup

Modeled after ai-assistant-instructions and ai-workflows:

• Workflow: minimal, scoped permissions (contents: write, pull-requests: write on job only)
• Config: simple release type using a VERSION file; changelog shows feat/fix/perf, hides docs/chore/refactor/test/ci
• Manifest: starts at 1.0.0 (no prior releases)
• bump-minor-pre-major: true: feat bumps minor while version is < 1.0.0 (not applicable at 1.0.0, but consistent with other repos)

Renovate Update

Added packageRules entry to auto-merge actions/ prefixed GitHub Actions on any version (including major), with squash merge. This covers:

• actions/checkout
• actions/setup-python
• actions/setup-go
• actions/github-script

Test plan

• Verify workflow appears in Actions tab after merge
• Confirm release-please creates a release PR on next feat: or fix: commit to main
• Confirm renovate auto-merge rule applies to actions/ updates

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Important

Adds release-please for automated releases and updates renovate.json for auto-merging GitHub Actions.

• Release Please Setup:
  • Adds release-please.yml for automated changelog generation and GitHub releases on main branch merges.
  • Configures minimal permissions and uses googleapis/release-please-action@v4.
  • Initializes versioning with VERSION file and .release-please-manifest.json starting at 1.0.0.
• Renovate Update:
  • Updates renovate.json to auto-merge actions/* GitHub Actions with squash merge.
  • Applies to all versions, including major, for actions/checkout, actions/setup-python, actions/setup-go, and actions/github-script.

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[gemini-code-assist]

Summary of Changes

Hello @JacobPEvans, I'm Gemini Code Assist¹! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request introduces significant improvements to the repository's continuous integration and dependency management. It sets up automated release processes to streamline versioning and changelog generation, while also enhancing Renovate Bot's capabilities to automatically manage and merge updates for critical GitHub Actions dependencies, ensuring the project stays up-to-date with minimal manual intervention.

Highlights

• Automated Releases: Integrated release-please to automate changelog generation and GitHub releases upon merging to the main branch, using a simple release type and tracking the version in a dedicated VERSION file.
• Dependency Automation: Enhanced renovate.json to automatically merge updates for actions/* GitHub Actions, including major version bumps, using a squash merge strategy to keep dependencies current.

Changelog

• .release-please-manifest.json
  • Initialized the release manifest with version 1.0.0.
• VERSION
  • Set the initial project version to 1.0.0.
• release-please-config.json
  • Configured release-please to use a simple release type, track version in VERSION file, enable minor bumps pre-major, and define visible changelog sections.
• renovate.json
  • Added a new package rule to automatically merge updates for official GitHub Actions, including major versions, using a squash merge strategy.

Ignored Files

• Ignored by pattern: .github/workflows/** (1)
  • .github/workflows/release-please.yml

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[ellipsis-dev]

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[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request introduces release-please for automated release management and configures Renovate to auto-merge updates for official GitHub Actions. The configuration for release-please is well-structured and follows best practices. For the Renovate configuration, I've suggested a small change to improve safety by adding a delay before auto-merging new releases. Overall, these are great improvements to the repository's CI/CD pipeline.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR adds automated release management via release-please and enhances Renovate's auto-merge capabilities for official GitHub Actions. The implementation follows established patterns from related repositories (ai-assistant-instructions, ai-workflows) with minimal, security-focused configurations.

Changes:

• Added release-please workflow to automate changelog generation and GitHub releases on pushes to main
• Configured release-please to use semantic versioning starting at 1.0.0 with a VERSION file
• Extended renovate.json to auto-merge actions/* GitHub Actions updates (including major versions)

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.github/workflows/release-please.yml	Minimal workflow with scoped permissions (contents: write, pull-requests: write) that triggers release-please on main branch pushes
release-please-config.json	Configures simple release type with VERSION file, semantic commit types, and changelog section visibility (shows feat/fix/perf, hides docs/chore/refactor/test/ci)
.release-please-manifest.json	Initializes version tracking at 1.0.0 for the root package
VERSION	Establishes initial version as 1.0.0 for release-please tracking
renovate.json	Adds packageRules to auto-merge actions/* GitHub Actions with squash merge and no minimum release age

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