Improve release script reliability (ENG-1733)

[oschwald]

Summary

• Add pre-flight checks to verify required tools and authentication before making any changes
• Checks include: gh CLI authentication, repository access, git remote connectivity, and required commands (perl, mvn)

This ensures the release script fails early with clear error messages rather than failing partway through after making changes.

Test plan

• Verify script syntax with bash -n dev-bin/release.sh
• Review changes to ensure pre-flight checks are correct

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