Release Runbook — 2026.Q2

This is the step-by-step procedure for cutting the first quarterly release on your machine. Everything in this directory is ready to ship; the steps below are the external actions that require your credentials and machine.

Pre-built artifacts in this directory

A dry-run release has already been built and verified:

  • releases/2026.Q2/corpus-2026.Q2.tar.gz — release tarball (106 entries)
  • releases/2026.Q2/SHA256SUMS — 120ecf49a8d1d2ac274933cac6d09ce55fbebc7142b9e77b5740e060dc3e3e67

The tarball is deterministic: rebuilding on your machine from the same source produces byte-identical output and the same SHA-256. This matters because it means anyone can independently verify the release content from the source repo.

Step 1: Create the GitHub repo

Either via the GitHub CLI:

gh repo create openie-dev/free-humanoid-corpus \
  --public \
  --description "Public-domain prior art commons for humanoid robotics. CC0." \
  --homepage "https://openie.dev"

Or via the web UI at https://github.com/organizations/openie-dev/repositories/new with the same name, public, no README/license/gitignore (those are in the directory already).

Step 2: Push the prepared directory

From your local copy of this directory:

git init -b main
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit: 106-entry seed corpus

Schema v0.2. 77 commons-grade entries, 29 draft entries.
Lineage DAG complete. Validation clean.
See SCHEMA.md, PLAN.md, README.md for context."

git remote add origin git@github.com:openie-dev/free-humanoid-corpus.git
git push -u origin main

If you already initialized git, just git add . && git commit && git push.

Step 3: Install OpenTimestamps client

The release script needs ots for Bitcoin anchoring. Install it once:

pip install opentimestamps-client
# or
pipx install opentimestamps-client

Confirm:

ots --version

Step 4: Run the release ceremony

Before running the actual release, delete the dry-run artifacts so the script can build them fresh with real timestamping:

rm -rf releases/2026.Q2
git add -A && git commit -m "chore: clear dry-run release dir before real release"

Now run the release:

./release.sh 2026.Q2

The script will:

  1. Validate the corpus passes strict mode
  2. Regenerate CORPUS_INDEX.md, lineage.json, per-corpus mirrors, cross-cuts
  3. Build the deterministic tarball (will produce the same SHA-256: 120ecf49a8d1d2ac274933cac6d09ce55fbebc7142b9e77b5740e060dc3e3e67)
  4. Submit the hash to FreeTSA (RFC 3161, free)
  5. Submit the hash to DigiCert (RFC 3161, free)
  6. Submit to OpenTimestamps (Bitcoin anchoring, free)
  7. Write MANIFEST.md documenting the release
  8. Commit the release directory and tag the commit 2026.Q2

If FreeTSA or DigiCert is temporarily down, the script will warn and continue — as long as at least one RFC 3161 layer succeeds plus OpenTimestamps, the release is valid. (You can also re-run the script later if needed; the deterministic tarball means re-submission produces the same hash.)

Step 5: Push the release 

git push origin main
git push origin 2026.Q2

Step 6: Upgrade the OpenTimestamps proof (in ~6 hours)

OpenTimestamps initially produces an unconfirmed proof. After a few hours, the proof is upgraded to a Bitcoin-anchored confirmed proof. Run this then:

ots upgrade releases/2026.Q2/corpus-2026.Q2.tar.gz.ots
git add releases/2026.Q2/corpus-2026.Q2.tar.gz.ots
git commit -m "release: upgrade 2026.Q2 OpenTimestamps proof"
git push

This is when the Bitcoin-anchored proof becomes verifiable. Before this upgrade, the proof exists but verification just shows “pending.”

Step 7: Verify the release independently

To confirm everything worked:

./tools/verify_release.sh 2026.Q2

This is the same script third parties (examiners, attorneys) will run to verify the release. It checks the SHA-256, the RFC 3161 timestamps, and the OpenTimestamps proof.

Step 8: Discoverability submissions

After the release tag is pushed and the OTS proof upgraded, the corpus exists publicly with cryptographic proof of pre-existence. The remaining work is making sure examiners and invalidity-contention attorneys actually find it.

In rough priority order:

8a. Crossref / OSF / Zenodo for DOI assignment

The fastest path to a citable DOI is Zenodo. Zenodo integrates with GitHub:

  1. Go to https://zenodo.org/account/settings/github/
  2. Sign in with GitHub
  3. Find openie-dev/free-humanoid-corpus and toggle it on
  4. Trigger a Zenodo deposit by creating a GitHub release pointing at the 2026.Q2 tag (use the GitHub web UI: Releases → Draft new release → Choose tag 2026.Q2 → Publish release)
  5. Zenodo automatically mints a DOI and archives the release tarball

Once the DOI is assigned, add it to the README and to MANIFEST.md.

8b. arXiv preprint

Optionally, write a short paper describing the corpus methodology and post to arXiv (cs.RO category). The corpus tarball can be referenced as supplementary material via the Zenodo DOI. This puts the corpus into arXiv’s index, which is heavily used by researchers and increasingly by patent examiners.

A 2-3 page methods paper is sufficient: schema, quality bar, timestamping ceremony, intended use as defensive publication.

8c. Google Patents non-patent literature

Google Patents indexes a subset of the open web. Once the repo is public and has incoming links from openie.dev or other indexed sites, it should get crawled. To accelerate:

  1. Add the repo URL to openie.dev with descriptive anchor text
  2. Submit the URL to Google Search Console
  3. If you’ve gone the arXiv route, the arXiv URL is already in Google Patents’ NPL corpus

8d. Internet Archive / Wayback Machine

Submit the GitHub repo URL and the release tarball URL to the Wayback Machine. This adds another independent timestamping layer:

https://web.archive.org/save/https://github.com/openie-dev/free-humanoid-corpus
https://web.archive.org/save/https://github.com/openie-dev/free-humanoid-corpus/releases/tag/2026.Q2

8e. Strategic announcements

Once the above is in place, the release becomes useful to others. Worth considering:

  • Blog post on openie.dev introducing the corpus and its purpose
  • Posts to relevant communities (r/robotics, Hacker News, robotics-worldwide mailing list, RAS distinguished list)
  • Direct outreach to academic labs with open hardware programs (K-Scale, Berkeley Humanoid lab, ETH RSL, etc.) — they are likely contributors and benefit from the commons existing
  • Direct outreach to patent attorneys working invalidity contention in robotics — they are the consumers of the cross-cuts

What “done” looks like

After all steps above, the corpus has:

  1. A public GitHub repo with the full data, tools, and documentation
  2. A tagged release with a deterministic, hash-verifiable tarball
  3. Three independent cryptographic timestamps (FreeTSA, DigiCert, OpenTimestamps Bitcoin) attesting to pre-existence
  4. A Zenodo-minted DOI for academic citation
  5. Indexing into examiner-discoverable channels (Google Patents NPL, arXiv, Wayback Machine)
  6. Public announcement so contributors and consumers find it

At that point, every entry in the corpus is functionally citeable as 102 prior art globally, and the corpus has begun to serve its purpose as a defensive publication archive for humanoid robotics.

If something goes wrong

The release script is idempotent within a version. If a step fails, fix the underlying issue and re-run — the deterministic tarball means the hash stays stable.

The one thing that can’t be retried: once a git tag is pushed to the public remote, deleting and re-tagging is bad form and confuses downstream consumers. So don’t push the tag until you’re confident the release directory is correct.

If you need to fix something after the tag is pushed, cut a new tag (2026.Q2.1 or move on to 2026.Q3) rather than rewriting history.

Quarterly cadence

After 2026.Q2 ships, the cadence is:

  • 2026.Q3 in early July 2026
  • 2026.Q4 in early October 2026
  • 2027.Q1 in early January 2027

Each quarter captures the corpus state at that moment with full timestamping. New entries added between quarters get their commons-grade status at the next release.

For high-value entries added specifically to function as prior art against a known patent threat, interim timestamping of the individual entry is worth doing — see TIMESTAMPING.md.

Public domain (CC0 1.0). The corpus IS the prior art commons.

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