[strategist] v5 GA readiness criteria are prose-only — define a trackable GA bar

[kubestellar-hive]

Strategic Finding

Type: roadmap-gap
Horizon: mid-term

ROADMAP.md names three v5 pillars (reviewer lane, formal verification, channel-based release trains) and states that "a documented migration path from v4 hubs and spokes, with dual-version operation during the transition, is part of the v5 GA bar" — but the GA bar exists only as prose. The repository has no GitHub milestones at all, and no tracker issue enumerates what must be true before the first stable v5 release (and before v4 EOL can be announced, which ROADMAP.md promises relative to v5 GA).

Scope claimed by this issue: GA-criteria tracking only. It does not overlap open PR #5559 (UPGRADE.md content, which would become one checklist item) or #4032/#1861 (proxy auth injection), and is distinct from #5555 (phased roadmap for RFC #4002) and #5617 (reviewer-lane follow-ups from #5480) — those are candidate entries in the GA bar, not the bar itself.

Rationale

Without an explicit, trackable GA definition:

• Operators tracking edge cannot judge distance-to-stable, weakening adoption confidence in the v5 line.
• The v4 EOL announcement commitment in ROADMAP.md has no measurable trigger.
• Per GOVERNANCE.md, breaking changes need supermajority process — a GA checklist makes it auditable that each pillar cleared its gate.

Proposed Next Step

Create a v5 GA milestone (or a single checklist tracker issue) enumerating, per pillar: remaining wiring (e.g. soak/promotion policy in CI, digest-verifiable deployment), the migration-path deliverable (UPGRADE.md, PR #5559), dual-version operation validation, and the v4 EOL announcement dependency. Maintainers then attach existing issues (#5555, #5617, #5512 follow-ups) rather than writing new ones.

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Filed by strategist agent (ACMM L5 — hold-gated mode)

🐝 Hive Agent: strategist | Instance: hosted-available-oke-11-placeholder-r05x | SHA: unknown

— hive: agent=strategist backend=copilot model=claude-sonnet-4-6

[clubanderson]

Dispatch against current origin/v5 tip d18d03952d6b42345109e01ce6d0a57126711c82.

Grounding found today:

• .github/release-lines.yml is the strongest existing v5 gate: release_lines: [v2, v4, v5], workflow trigger parity, and docker.yml LONG_LIVED policy checks.
• src/docs/releases.md defines immutable tagged releases, changelog-derived semver, release-gate branch protection, and SBOM attachment — but it is v4-oriented and still describes stable/candidate/edge as v4 moving tags pending [strategist] release-channels.md promotion-policy note is stale — channels have diverged (v4→stable/candidate, v5→edge) but the doc says all three retag on every v4 merge #5687's doc correction.
• src/docs/release-channels.md is the operator channel-selection page; [strategist] release-channels.md promotion-policy note is stale — channels have diverged (v4→stable/candidate, v5→edge) but the doc says all three retag on every v4 merge #5687 is correcting it so v4 owns stable/candidate and v5 owns edge.
• src/docs/roadmap.md is a public roadmap, but current v5 checkout does not contain a measurable "v5 GA" checklist, milestone, or owner/status table.

Concrete plan:

1. Create one tracker issue or milestone named v5 GA bar with checkbox items grouped by pillar and linked to existing issues/PRs.
2. Define measurable release-train criteria: v5 present in release-lines.yml, required workflows passing on v5, edge publishing verified by GHCR digest, stable/candidate isolated to v4 until promotion policy lands, and tagged-release docs updated for the v5 line.
3. Define migration criteria: UPGRADE.md merged, dual v4/v5 hub-spoke operation tested, rollback/channel-switch procedure documented, and v4 EOL announcement explicitly blocked on GA completion.
4. Define reviewer/formal-verification criteria: reviewer lane template follow-up from [v5] reviewer lane follow-ups deferred from #5480 delivery #5617 closed, escalation Spin model default expectations green, hold-guard and merge lanes covered by tests, and no expected-fail safety witnesses remain.
5. Add a small docs page (src/docs/v5-ga.md) that mirrors the tracker so operators can see current GA distance without reading labels.

Phase-1 PR scope: add src/docs/v5-ga.md plus a tracker issue template/checklist; no release machinery changes.

[clubanderson]

Implemented and merged in #5749: added the v5 GA readiness bar documentation and tracker checklist.