Summary

When the release-please bot merges its PR to main, the main.yml workflow triggers again, running release-please in a loop. This wastes CI resources and can create confusing workflow runs.

Problem

The current main.yml workflow triggers on every push to main:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

When release-please merges its PR (commits authored by hve-core-release-please[bot]), this triggers the workflow again, which runs all validation jobs and release-please again unnecessarily.

Root Cause

• Commit author: hve-core-release-please[bot]
• Commit message pattern: chore(main): release hve-core X.X.X
• The workflow has no logic to detect and skip bot-authored commits

Proposed Solution

Add a gate job pattern to detect release-please bot commits and skip validation jobs:

jobs:
  should-run:
    name: Check Trigger Source
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      proceed: ${{ steps.check.outputs.proceed }}
    steps:
      - name: Check if release-please commit
        id: check
        run: |
          if [[ "${{ github.event.head_commit.author.name }}" == "hve-core-release-please[bot]" ]]; then
            echo "::notice title=Workflow Skipped::Release-please bot commit detected"
            echo "proceed=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          else
            echo "proceed=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          fi

  spell-check:
    needs: should-run
    if: needs.should-run.outputs.proceed == 'true'
    # ... existing config

Acceptance Criteria

• Workflow does not run validation jobs when release-please bot commits to main
• release-please job runs normally for human commits
• Clear audit trail in Actions logs when workflow is skipped
• No changes to release-please configuration or behavior

Research

Detailed research available at .copilot-tracking/research/2026-02-04-release-please-infinite-loop-prevention.md

Files to Modify