fix(ci): always tag distribution even when content unchanged

[flippyhead]

Discovered during Task 21: the publish workflow's no-diff gate was preventing the tag from being created when rc → final releases had byte-identical content. Splits the step into four so tag creation is independent from commit creation.

Follow-up to #16.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Note

Low Risk
Low risk workflow refactor that only changes publish/tagging behavior in GitHub Actions. Main risk is accidental extra tag pushes or mismatched commit/tag if the distribution repo state is unexpected.

Overview
Updates the publish-plugin GitHub Actions workflow to decouple tagging from committing when publishing to the distribution repo.

The workflow now commits only when staged content differs (exposing committed=true/false), but it always creates and pushes the distribution tag even if there were no content changes (e.g., RC → final with identical bytes). The final summary output is updated to report whether a commit was made.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit e9c6ffe. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
ai-brain	Ready	Preview, Comment	Apr 20, 2026 11:21pm

[qodo-code-review]

Review Summary by Qodo

Always tag distribution on release, even with unchanged content

🐞 Bug fix

Walkthroughs

Description

• Splits publish workflow into four independent steps for reliability
• Tag creation now always executes, regardless of content changes
• Commit and push operations remain conditional on actual changes
• Fixes issue where rc→final releases with identical content skipped tagging

Diagram

flowchart LR
  A["Check for changes"] --> B["Commit if changed"]
  B --> C["Tag always"]
  C --> D["Push commit if changed"]
  D --> E["Push tag always"]

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File Changes

1. .github/workflows/publish-plugin.yml 🐞 Bug fix +22/-11

Split publish workflow for independent tag creation

• Refactored single "Commit and tag" step into four separate steps
• Made tag creation unconditional while keeping commit conditional
• Changed output variable from changed to committed for clarity
• Updated conditional logic to push tag independently from commit push

.github/workflows/publish-plugin.yml

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[qodo-code-review]

Code Review by Qodo

🐞 Bugs (1) 📘 Rule violations (0) 📎 Requirement gaps (0)

1. Misleading summary env name 🐞 Bug ⚙ Maintainability

Description

The Summary step assigns steps.publish.outputs.committed into an env var named CHANGED, which is
inconsistent with the new committed terminology and can mislead future edits or reuse of this env
var.

Code

.github/workflows/publish-plugin.yml[R135-143]

      - name: Summary
        env:
          TAG: ${{ steps.ref.outputs.tag }}
          BRANCH: ${{ steps.distbranch.outputs.branch }}
-          CHANGED: ${{ steps.publish.outputs.changed }}
+          CHANGED: ${{ steps.publish.outputs.committed }}
        run: |
          echo "Source tag: $TAG"
          echo "Distribution: https://github.com/flippyhead/ai-brain-plugin (branch: $BRANCH)"
-          echo "Changed: $CHANGED"
+          echo "Committed: $CHANGED"

Evidence

The workflow renamed the output to committed, but the Summary step still stores it in CHANGED
and then prints "Committed", making the env var name inconsistent with the meaning.

.github/workflows/publish-plugin.yml[135-143]

Agent prompt

The issue below was found during a code review. Follow the provided context and guidance below and implement a solution

### Issue description
The Summary step uses an env var named `CHANGED` to hold `steps.publish.outputs.committed`, which is inconsistent with the new output naming and can confuse maintenance.

### Issue Context
The workflow refactor replaced `changed` with `committed` to reflect whether a commit was created.

### Fix Focus Areas
- .github/workflows/publish-plugin.yml[135-143]

### Suggested change
- Rename `CHANGED` env var to `COMMITTED`
- Update the final `echo` to use `$COMMITTED`

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