rseng-publishing-releasinglisted

# Publishing, packaging, releasing and archiving software Use this skill when helping someone move research software from a working repository to something others can find, install, run, cite, and rely on years from now. These are four distinct stages that people routinely conflate; get the vocabulary straight first, then follow the stage the user actually needs. ## Distinguish the four stages Keep these separate when advising - they answer different questions: - Publishing - making software available so others can find, use, and cite it. Putting code on GitHub/GitLab is the start, not the whole job. - Packaging - preparing the software so others can install and run it with a single command or download (structure, config files, metadata). - Releasing - packaging one specific stable version for people to download and run, tagged with a version number. - Archiving - long-term preservation independent of any one platform, so the exact software survives even if a hosting service disappears. Publishing is the umbrella; packaging, releasing, and archiving are the concrete sub-tasks that make a publication findable, installable, and durable. ## Publishing: the end-to-end order Publishing is more than pushing to a public repo. Walk these tasks in this order, because each depends on the previous ones: 1. Write release notes, a changelog, and usage instructions. 2. Add metadata for discoverability, and capture dependencies and environments (containers, environment fi