Autoship

Drive an npm release end to end: changeset, fix loop, push, CI watch, Version Packages PR merge, publish watch, npm verification.

IS: the full release pipeline for an existing changesets-based npm package, from writing the changeset file to confirming the new version on the registry.
IS NOT: opening a feature PR (use pr-creator), monitoring a feature PR for reviews, conflicts, or CI (use pr-babysitter), general build/type fixes outside a release flow, or scaffolding a new package (use scaffold-cli, which hands off to autoship for the first release).

The Release Loop

One workflow, two successive runs. Misreading it as two workflows causes most autoship mistakes.

Push a commit containing a pending .changeset/*.md file to the default branch.
The release workflow runs: changesets/action sees pending changesets, runs changeset version in CI, and opens or updates a PR titled "Version Packages" on branch changeset-release/main with the package.json bump and CHANGELOG.md updates.
Merge that PR once every check is green.
The same workflow runs again. With no pending changesets left, the action runs its publish: script (changeset publish), pushing tags and publishing to npm.

The local job ends at "push the changeset file". CI owns versioning and publishing; anything versioned locally breaks the loop (see Gotchas).