Release workflow fails: GitHub Actions lacks PR creation permission

[ZachDreamZ]

Summary

The Release workflow (googleapis/release-please-action@v4) fails on every push to main with:

GitHub Actions is not permitted to create or approve pull requests.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Push any commit to main
2. Observe the Release workflow at https://github.com/ZachDreamZ/pi-ultra-compact/actions/workflows/release.yml
3. The release-please step fails at PR creation

Root Cause

The workflow YAML declares permissions: contents: write, pull-requests: write, but the GITHUB_TOKEN used by the runner does not have pull-requests: write in practice. This is likely an org-level or repo-level restriction overriding the workflow-level permission declaration.

Impact

• v1.1.0 changes (Phase 6: maintenance tooling) are committed but never published to npm
• No new releases are being created automatically
• No release PRs are opened for review

Fix Required (repo settings, not code)

1. Go to Settings → Actions → General → Workflow permissions
2. Ensure "Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests" is enabled
3. Or configure a Personal Access Token (PAT) with repo scope as GH_TOKEN / GITHUB_TOKEN secret

Cannot fix via code — .github/workflows/release.yml permissions block is correct; the override is at the repo/org level.

Additional Note

release-please also shows warnings about unparseable merge commit messages (e.g., "Merge pull request #37"). These are non-blocking but may cause auto-version detection issues.

[ZachDreamZ]

Fixed in PR #40 — merged and tagged as v1.1.1.

What changed: Replaced googleapis/release-please-action@v4 with a tag-based workflow. The new workflow triggers on v* tag pushes instead of main branch pushes, creating a GitHub Release and publishing to npm directly. No PR creation permissions needed.

Release workflow is running now at: https://github.com/ZachDreamZ/pi-ultra-compact/actions/runs
(Status: in_progress on tag v1.1.1)

To publish future versions: push a vX.Y.Z tag, and the workflow handles the rest.

[ZachDreamZ]

Confirmed fixed. v1.1.2 released successfully:

• GitHub Release v1.1.2 created ✅
• npm package pi-ultra-compact@1.1.2 published ✅
• Release workflow runs automatically on tag push, no PR creation needed

Root cause: The NPM_TOKEN GitHub secret was invalid/expired. Updated with a valid token. The workflow itself was already correct after PR #40 (tag-based instead of release-please) and PR #41 (always-auth: true).

To publish future versions:

git tag vX.Y.Z
git push origin vX.Y.Z