fix: make manual release fail on no-op publish

.github/workflows/release.yml

@@ -120,9 +120,17 @@ jobs:
         run: cargo package --locked --list
 
       - name: Run release-plz
+        id: release_plz
         uses: release-plz/action@v0.5
         with:
           command: release
           dry_run: ${{ inputs.operation == 'publish-dry-run' }}
         env:
           GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+
+      - name: Require release output
+        if: ${{ steps.release_plz.outputs.releases_created != 'true' }}
+        run: |
+          echo "release-plz completed without creating a release." >&2
+          echo "Check that Cargo.toml contains an unpublished version and that release-plz is allowed to release the current main commit." >&2
+          exit 1

docs/RELEASE.md

@@ -46,6 +46,12 @@ intent check treats these paths as release-affecting: `Cargo.toml`, `Cargo.lock`
 4. Run `Release` from `main` with `publish-dry-run`.
 5. If the dry run passes, run `Release` again with `publish`.
 
+The manual publish job uses `release_always = true` because the workflow is not
+triggered on every merge; it only runs when a maintainer explicitly selects a
+publish operation. The job fails if release-plz reports that it created no
+release, so a green publish run means a crate/GitHub release was actually
+produced.
+
 release-plz publishes unpublished package versions to crates.io, creates the bare
 SemVer tag such as `0.2.0`, and creates the GitHub release from the generated
 changelog. Bare SemVer tags intentionally match the existing `0.1.0` tag.

release-plz.toml

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ pr_labels = ["release"]
 pr_name = "chore(release): {{ version }}"
 publish = true
 publish_timeout = "30m"
-release_always = false
+release_always = true
 release_commits = '^((feat|fix|perf|refactor|revert)(\([a-z0-9][a-z0-9._/-]*\))?(!)?|[a-z]+(\([a-z0-9][a-z0-9._/-]*\))?!): .+'
 repo_url = "https://github.com/f0rr0/pglite-oxide"
 semver_check = true