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), 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 this as two different workflows is the root cause of most autoship mistakes.

You 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 inside CI, and opens or updates a PR titled "Version Packages" on branch changeset-release/main containing the package.json bump and CHANGELOG.md updates.
You merge that PR once every check is green.
The same workflow runs again. With no pending changesets left, the action executes its publish: script (changeset publish), which pushes tags and publishes to npm.

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