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+# 040 - Release-notes fallback and the v2.20.0 release
+
+## The defect
+
+Release bodies for v2.18.2 and v2.19.0 were 169-character stubs: the npm line
+plus a compare link, no changelog. Root cause is not the workflow but its input:
+`releases/generate-notes` aggregates MERGED PULL REQUESTS over the compared tag
+range. Work had been landing as direct commits on dev, so those ranges had
+almost nothing the API would count.
+
+Measured live before the fix:
+
+| Range | Commits | PR-associated | Body |
+|-------|---------|---------------|------|
+| v2.14.2..v2.16.0 | 62 | 52 (84%) | 1883 chars |
+| v2.16.0..v2.17.0 | 31 | 7 (23%) | 523 chars |
+| v2.17.0..v2.18.2 | 36 | 0 | 169 (stub) |
+| v2.18.2..v2.19.0 | 21 | 2 | 169 (stub) |
+
+The two PR-associated commits in the v2.19.0 range did not help either: one was
+the release merge commit, and the other belonged to a PR based on `dev`, which
+a main-tag comparison does not count.
+
+## The fix (#1766, dev c71c82749)
+
+When the PR delta yields no categories, the workflow renders the commit log
+instead - categorized by conventional-commit prefix, excluding merge and
+release-bump commits. Replaying the real v2.18.2..v2.19.0 range turns the stub
+into a 1.8 KB categorized changelog.
+
+Three adversarial review rounds produced seven blockers, all folded:
+
+- Commit log is NUL-framed (`git log -z`). U+001F is legal in both commit
+  subjects AND git author names, so the original unit-separator framing could be
+  forged from either side; git forbids NUL in commit content.
+- `%an` is a free-form display name, not a GitHub login. A contributor named
+  "Abhishek Sharma" rendered as a live `@Abhishek` mention. Authors now render as
+  plain text in a `(sha, Name)` trailer.
+- Markdown metacharacters are backslash-escaped, not deleted, so technical text
+  like `Map<K, V> | CLI` survives while staying inert.
+- Fallback generation depends on this range's PR delta only. Gating on carried
+  notes too silently dropped every post-preview direct commit.
+- Carried commit bullets survive the preview-to-stable carry, and carried plus
+  current sections merge by category so a shared heading is not emitted twice.
+- `merge:` conventional-prefix commits join the plumbing filter.
+- Two converted tests were vacuous (literal `\u001f` fixtures parsed to nothing).
+
+16 regression tests; focused suite 70/70.
+
+## The release
+
+- dev c71c82749 -> main 1cf216299 (direct push) and -> preview via PR #1768
+  (preview is ruleset-protected like dev, so the direct push was rejected).
+- `scripts/release.ts 2.20.0 --publish`: preflight 12374 pass / 0 fail, bumped
+  package.json, pushed release commit 8ea6c0851, waited on exact-SHA CI.
+- First exact-SHA CI attempt failed on a macOS Bun runtime segfault (exit 133,
+  RSS 3.27GB on a 7.52GB runner, zero assertion failures). Rerun passed. Worth
+  watching as a memory-pressure signal; it is not a code defect.
+- Release workflow run 31886119548 succeeded with expected-sha pinning.
+
+Verified: npm dist-tag `latest` = 2.20.0; tag v2.20.0 = 8ea6c0851; GitHub
+Release targets that SHA; body is 4173 chars with real categories.
+
+Note: the fallback did NOT fire on this release. This range carried real PR
+merges (#1736, #1744, #1752 and others), so generate-notes produced categories
+on its own and the guard correctly left the fallback unused. Its correctness
+rests on the reproduced v2.18.2..v2.19.0 replay and the regression suite.