v0.36.0 Release Recap

v0.36.0 is a non-breaking operations release that adds dry-run-first publishing for backup lifecycle index metadata.

What Changed

Area	New in v0.36.0	Why it matters
Index metadata publish	contextdb snapshot lifecycle index publish --in PATH --dry-run --report	Lets operators validate the backup catalog metadata they would expose to ops tooling
Explicit write	--execute --publish-url URL --token TOKEN	Keeps publication intentional and compatible with authenticated Norn-adjacent endpoints
Safe payload	Bundle timestamps, retention decisions, artifact counts, and byte/hash coverage	Shares catalog state without uploading backup contents
Feature metadata	lifecycle-index-publish	Lets live deployments advertise backup catalog metadata publish support

Compatibility

This release only adds a new lifecycle index publish command and feature metadata. Existing lifecycle indexes, verification, diffs, Norn manifest publishing, backup, restore, REST, GraphQL, and SDK behavior is unchanged.

Operator Flow

contextdb snapshot lifecycle index publish \
  --in "$CONTEXTDB_BACKUP_DIR/contextdb-backups.index.json" \
  --publish-url "$CONTEXTDB_LIFECYCLE_INDEX_PUBLISH_URL" \
  --report

The default dry run validates the index and prints the payload. To publish, opt in explicitly:

contextdb snapshot lifecycle index publish \
  --in "$CONTEXTDB_BACKUP_DIR/contextdb-backups.index.json" \
  --publish-url "$CONTEXTDB_LIFECYCLE_INDEX_PUBLISH_URL" \
  --token "$NORN_TOKEN" \
  --execute \
  --report

Verification

Release gates for this slice:

Gate	Status
go test -count=1 ./...	Passed
npm run docs:build	Passed
git diff --check	Passed