release: AppDock v0.2.2-beta.1 candidate

[eWOOD29]

Scope

Prepare the first frozen AppDock Beta prerelease candidate from the accepted develop integration state.

This PR is release-preparation only. It does not create a tag, publish a GitHub Release, change Stable main, or modify any live installation.

Changes

• set AppDock runtime/project version to 0.2.2-beta.1;
• add the 0.2.2-beta.1 changelog entry covering the incident-derived updater preflight/restart-log hardening and the published-v0.2.1 helper-argument compatibility fix;
• update version-consistency assertions only.

Frozen source identity

• Base/develop: 233351d1caaea0541bb781cf4ba45b46c24c6162
• Candidate head: 8b6ea7786e9eaa962287bc012ec9812d5a05ca1c
• Candidate tree: 78e70a24f2869a9719607f26da039745482bf745
• Ancestry: exactly 1 commit ahead / 0 behind
• Changed files: exactly 6 (CHANGELOG.md, appdock.py, pyproject.toml, tests/test_appdock.py, tests/test_update_channels.py, tests/test_v020.py)
• PR: open, draft, unmerged, mergeable

The disposable preparation workflow used to materialize the bounded version edits is not present in this candidate tree or branch history; the candidate is a single clean commit directly atop develop.

Exact-head CI

• Run: 31810200245 — SUCCESS
• Exact head: 8b6ea7786e9eaa962287bc012ec9812d5a05ca1c
• Windows Python 3.11: 203 tests, PASS
• Windows Python 3.13: 203 tests, PASS
• Ubuntu Python 3.11/3.13: PASS
• Windows portable install/uninstall: PASS
• Ubuntu portable build: PASS
• Windows/Ubuntu portable package byte equality: PASS
• Windows private fixture on both hosts: PASS
• private preview/digest/ZIP equality: PASS
• JavaScript, compile, privacy/secret scan, documentation: PASS

Frozen portable artifact

Exact Windows CI artifact appdock-windows, artifact ID 9222802077:

• GitHub Actions artifact archive: 105,189 bytes; SHA-256 da390823dc57bb632387d2ae19f469a5c042f2ea007192e251cc4416219c604c
• appdock-windows.zip: 407,173 bytes; SHA-256 3b3447aa22ade2a6ad7fd571df772f6f9ad91a671f3d115b935cbda46b8059a7
• SHA256SUMS.txt: 86 bytes; SHA-256 9641a038b3ff1a3a37adb2348cd3f5f72a6510b7dd91f1fea262fc7e316f1882
• checksum file names the exact ZIP digest above
• release inventory: 36 managed files plus RELEASE-MANIFEST.json; 0 manifest hash mismatches and no unexpected archive member
• packaged runtime/project version: 0.2.2-beta.1

CI independently proved the Windows and Ubuntu portable ZIP bytes match exactly.

Published-v0.2.1 compatibility control

A disposable project-lead control used appdock.py from the exact accepted v0.2.1 main-CI package (run 31626216982) against the exact candidate ZIP/checksum bytes above.

Observed:

• v0.2.1 Beta release parsing accepted v0.2.2-beta.1;
• v0.2.1 considered it newer than 0.2.1;
• v0.2.1 stage_update accepted the exact candidate checksum, ZIP and release inventory and staged the candidate successfully;
• the staged program reported CURRENT_VERSION = "0.2.2-beta.1".

This is supplemental implementation evidence; it does not replace the separate release-acceptance gate.

Remaining gates

• PR remains draft and unmerged pending focused independent release-candidate review.
• No merge into develop without separate explicit authorization after acceptance.
• No v0.2.2-beta.1 tag or prerelease publication without separate explicit authorization.
• No live Stable→Beta opt-in/update without separate explicit authorization.