chore: add option to skip pre-release checks

[ThetaSinner]

I think this was previously requested, and it's time to add it. Sometimes the baseline just won't build, and it's not our fault. These are nice to have, not absolutely required on dev releases.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features
  • Added a new --skip-semver-checks command-line flag to the release utility, enabling users to bypass semantic versioning validation checks during the release preparation process. When activated, a warning message is displayed instead of enforcing version constraints.

[cocogitto-bot]

✔️ 4423dad - Conventional commits check succeeded.

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The pull request adds a new skip_semver_checks boolean parameter to the release preparation flow, allowing semver validation to be bypassed when enabled. The parameter is exposed as a CLI flag, threaded through the binary, and used to conditionally skip semver checks with a warning in the core release utility function.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Integration call-site crates/integration/src/lib.rs	Updated call to prepare_release to pass an additional boolean argument.
CLI flag definition and threading crates/release_util/src/bin/holochain_release_util.rs	Added skip_semver_checks: bool field to ReleaseUtilCommand::Prepare enum variant with help text and long flag annotation. Threaded the parameter through to the prepare_release function call.
Core release logic crates/release_util/src/lib.rs	Added skip_semver_checks: bool parameter to prepare_release function. Replaced unconditional semver checks with conditional logic: when enabled, emits a warning and skips validation; otherwise, preserves original semver check flow.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• chore: allow RC releases #23: Modifies tag-matching logic used during semver checks in the release preparation flow, complementing this PR's skip semver checks feature.

Suggested reviewers

• matthme

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: adding an option to skip pre-release checks (specifically semver validation). The implementation adds skip_semver_checks parameter throughout the codebase to conditionally bypass semver validation.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	Docstring coverage is 100.00% which is sufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings (stacked PR)
• 📝 Generate docstrings (commit on current branch)

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch option-to-skip-pre-release-checks

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Inline comments:
In `@crates/release_util/src/lib.rs`:
- Around line 49-57: get_released_version_tag's Err branch currently treats all
failures as "no previous release"; change it to distinguish the known "no
previous release" sentinel from other operational errors by inspecting the error
(from get_released_version_tag / get_version_from_cliff_output). Specifically,
match Err(e) and if e.to_string() (or pattern-match the error variant if
available) equals or contains "No value in git-cliff output list" then print the
existing "No previous release found, skipping semver checks" message and
continue, otherwise propagate the error (return Err(e) or use ?), so real
failures from git-cliff, JSON parsing, etc. are not silently ignored; keep
references to get_released_version_tag, get_version_from_cliff_output,
get_revision_for_tag, and run_semver_checks to locate the code.

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ℹ️ Review info

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 2571875 and 4423dad.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• crates/integration/src/lib.rs
• crates/release_util/src/bin/holochain_release_util.rs
• crates/release_util/src/lib.rs