Use agents/now/RELEASE.md for the current route to the next release candidate. Use this directory for release contracts that should survive agent handoffs, documentation rebuilds, and RC planning.

Documents

READINESS.md: feature/API freeze expectations, quality audits, packaging, legal/asset checks, and release-blocking validation.
RC_PROCESS.md: RC1, RC2, RC3, and final-release gates and required artifacts.
RELEASE_AUTOMATION.md: maintainer/agent automation phases, command surface, approval gates, and publication safety.
ARTIFACT_EVIDENCE.md: local release state, artifact checksums, evidence bundles, and report status values.
VALIDATION_MATRIX.md: machine classes, validation profiles, and required release evidence.
PHYSICAL_VALIDATION.md: exact-artifact identity, maintainer-guided live interaction, evidence invalidation, and physical-machine acceptance policy.
WHEEL_BACKEND_ARCHITECTURE.md: aggressive long-term wheel backend refactor plan for producing py3-none-<platform> artifacts directly.
COMMUNICATION.md: release notes, blog/announcement assets, public messages, and feedback channels.
GALLERY_OUTREACH.md: real-dataset showcase and scientist outreach policy.

Source-Of-Truth Boundaries

Active sequencing and current blockers stay in agents/now/.
Public documentation structure stays in ../docs/.
Example coverage and metadata stay in ../docs/EXAMPLE_COVERAGE.md and ../scene/examples/.
Dataset layout, provenance, promotion, and submodule policy stay in ../data/V0_4_DATA_REPOSITORY.md.
Scene, DRP2, API, and binding behavior contracts stay in their owning spec/ directories.

Release specs may link to those sources, but should not duplicate detailed API, example, or data mechanics.