TLDR

Update release workflows to use environment vars for package names, tokens and things. Expose this option in release-manual, default environment=prod in all other release flows. Follow on work is iterated on below.

Dive Deeper

Walk thru

• Add a composite action to return the appropriate auth token for a given package name
• Add a composite action to properly setup the .npmrc file.
• Update publish-release/action.yml to accept package names and token via variables
• Update workflows/verify-release.yml to handle environment variables (this is not used for the release process, and is instead for manual testing)
• Update all workflows that use publish-release/action.yml to:
  • To. specify the new env vars (cli-package-name, etc, etc)
  • Specify an environment for each task
  • For release-manual.yml: Add an option to specify dev vs prod
  • For all other releases (nightly, etc, etc): Fix the option to prod, add a TODO around adding plumbing for this.

Odd things / Issues / Future cleanup

NOTE: Pending this review, I will file all the pending things as tickets that I think are easily digestible.

• There is a script that preps the github launch. I opted to just conditional this. I think this can be generalized in a more focused follow up (Potential irony, I anticipated this @ Update verify release workflow to account for different registries #10452)
• A2A package was failing to deploy to GH NPM Registry. For the moment I conditioned this to only only push when the
  package name is for PROD. In the immediate term, I think this can be fixed. (It seems that A2A publishing was rollback anyway, lolz. ref: Revert "chore: wire a2a-server up for publishing" #11064 )
• I need to add in the prod vs dev switch to each of the other release actions. This is easy enough, but I wanted to document this and communicate it before I make that change. I think it's best as a separate cl.
• release rollback workflow needs some serious updating to adhere to this. Notably, get-release-version.js needs updating to accept dynamic package names. This will allow the rollback action to potentially work with the dev repo

Reviewer Test Plan

Dev Run

I ran manual-release w/ (tag=0.0.666 && target=dev && env=dev)

• RUN: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18481581873/job/52657168226
• PACKAGE: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/pkgs/npm/gemini-cli/543351915

➜  gemini-cli git:(rf/env) npm dist-tags @google-gemini/gemini-cli
dev: 0.0.666
false: 0.0.666
meow: 0.0.777777777777
test: 0.0.777777777777

PROD RUN

I ran manual release w/ (tag=0.0.77777776 && target=dev && env=dev)

• RUN: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18482070636/job/52658551850
• PACKAGE: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@google/gemini-cli/v/0.0.77777776

➜  gemini-cli git:(rf/env) npm dist-tags @google/gemini-cli
bundle: 0.0.44-beta.0
dev: 0.0.77777776
false: 0.0.77777776
latest: 0.8.2
nightly: 0.10.0-nightly.20251013.cfb71b9d
preview: 0.9.0-preview.2

Others

• verify-release - https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18483520192
• change tag - https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18483844698/job/52663380964

➜  gemini-cli git:(rf/env) npm dist-tags ls @google-gemini/gemini-cli
dev: 0.0.6
false: 0.0.666
meow: 0.0.777777777777
test: 0.0.777777777777

• nightly (dry run): https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18483936087/job/52663670497
• rollback (dry run): https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18484359891/job/52665067921
• patch3 (dry): https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/actions/runs/18484541832

Linked issues / bugs

#10003