From 288b700eb45175de03dc801c45c23cf988c9c7fe Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andrey Avtomonov <andreybavt@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 May 2026 13:49:38 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix(release): don't throw on non-main branches at config-load
 time

knip loads .releaserc.cjs on every PR run, where GITHUB_REF_NAME is the
merge ref (e.g. 180/merge). The previous version of releaseBranches threw
immediately when the branch wasn't main, which made knip fail to evaluate
the config and then mis-flag @semantic-release/exec as an unused dep.

semantic-release already refuses to publish when the current branch doesn't
match a configured release branch, so the explicit throw was redundant.
Drop it (and the unused currentBranch helper) and replace the
"rejects releases from non-main" assertion with one that exercises a CI-
shaped GITHUB_REF_NAME and confirms the config loads.
---
 scripts/semantic-release-config.cjs      |  9 ---------
 scripts/semantic-release-config.test.mjs | 11 ++++++-----
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diff --git a/scripts/semantic-release-config.cjs b/scripts/semantic-release-config.cjs
index 6c424ef8..d1f17bbf 100644
--- a/scripts/semantic-release-config.cjs
+++ b/scripts/semantic-release-config.cjs
@@ -74,10 +74,6 @@ const releaseNoteTypes = [
   { type: 'major', section: 'BREAKING CHANGES', hidden: false },
 ];
 
-function currentBranch(env) {
-  return env.GITHUB_REF_NAME || env.INPUT_BRANCH || 'main';
-}
-
 function releaseKind(env) {
   return env.KTX_RELEASE_KIND || env.INPUT_RELEASE_KIND || 'rc';
 }
@@ -87,13 +83,8 @@ function releaseTag(kind) {
 }
 
 function releaseBranches(env = process.env) {
-  const branch = currentBranch(env);
   const kind = releaseKind(env);
 
-  if (branch !== 'main') {
-    throw new Error(`KTX releases must run from main, got ${branch}`);
-  }
-
   if (kind === 'rc') {
     return [{ name: 'main', prerelease: 'rc', channel: 'next' }];
   }
diff --git a/scripts/semantic-release-config.test.mjs b/scripts/semantic-release-config.test.mjs
index 2b880d58..be4dcc38 100644
--- a/scripts/semantic-release-config.test.mjs
+++ b/scripts/semantic-release-config.test.mjs
@@ -64,12 +64,13 @@ describe('semantic-release config', () => {
     }
   });
 
-  it('rejects releases from non-main branches', () => {
+  it('produces a loadable config regardless of GITHUB_REF_NAME', () => {
+    // Knip and other tooling load .releaserc.cjs on PR runners where
+    // GITHUB_REF_NAME is the merge ref. semantic-release itself enforces the
+    // main-only rule by refusing to publish when the current branch does not
+    // match a configured release branch, so the config must not throw at load.
     for (const kind of ['rc', 'stable']) {
-      assert.throws(
-        () => releaseBranches({ KTX_RELEASE_KIND: kind, GITHUB_REF_NAME: 'feature/release-test' }),
-        /KTX releases must run from main, got feature\/release-test/,
-      );
+      assert.doesNotThrow(() => releaseBranches({ KTX_RELEASE_KIND: kind, GITHUB_REF_NAME: '180/merge' }));
     }
   });