docs(planning): capture the release-PR changelog deadlock (RELTRUTH-01)

[szTheory]

The finding

Root release PR #57 (0.2.0 → 0.2.1) has 9 failing checks and — for one of them — cannot be made green from inside itself.

test/crosswake/guides/release_boundaries_test.exs:128 derives "current version" from mix.exs:

defp current_version do
  Application.spec(:crosswake, :vsn) |> to_string()
end

Inside a release PR that version is already bumped, so the previous version is treated as stale and CHANGELOG.md:20-22,36 get flagged [stale_latest_hex]:

old version 0.2.0 is presented as the latest/current Hex release

But those lines are true. 0.2.0 genuinely is the published release; 0.2.1 isn't out. And the root package sets "skip-changelog": true, so release-please never writes CHANGELOG.md in its own release PR — nothing inside the PR can clear the flag.

Root cause: the gate conflates "version in mix.exs" with "latest published Hex release." Those are deliberately different during a release PR.

Why captured, not fixed

1. It changes the semantics of a merge-blocking release-honesty gate — the same class of gate that just caught the rulestead/rindle publish overclaim (docs(companions): tell the truth — rulestead/rindle are unpublished #84). Weakening it wrongly lets real overclaims through. That deserves your eyes, not a drive-by.
2. The principled fix needs a CI change too. The repo already establishes the right authority in script/check_release_as_staleness.sh — the git tag, not the local manifest, is the authoritative already-released signal. Applying that here is correct, but proof workflows check out without fetch-tags, so it needs checkout changes across many workflows.
3. chore: release main #57's other 8 failures are publish-prep. Version-bump fixture regeneration (release-status mirror ref, phase52_publish_readiness.json, native_evidence_drift, doctor_threadline, phase43) only makes sense alongside a real decision to publish 0.2.1 — an irreversible Hex + Maven Central + SwiftPM mirror push you deliberately deferred this pass.

Impact today

None. main is green; #57 simply sits open as a standing publish gate, exactly as docs/MILESTONE-BOUNDARY-HYGIENE.md §4 prescribes. This lands the diagnosis so the next person doesn't re-derive it.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code