fix(release): populate changelog on workflow_dispatch reruns

The "What's changed" section was built solely from
github.event.pull_request.body, which is only present on the
pull_request merge event. On a workflow_dispatch re-run that context
is empty, so the GitHub release published with an empty changelog and
failed silently.

Resolve RELEASE_PR_BODY robustly: fall back to the body of the most
recently merged changeset-release/main PR when the pull_request context
is absent. Also fail loudly in generate-github-release.mjs when a
non-prerelease resolves no changelog content, so an empty changelog can
no longer publish silently. Prereleases remain exempt.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014CjQVhMqLbRo3VuLaGSLfg

Author: claude

.github/workflows/release.yml

@@ -143,6 +143,21 @@ jobs:
           STEPS_GET_VERSION_OUTPUTS_IS_PRERELEASE: ${{ steps.get_version.outputs.is_prerelease }}
         run: |
           VERSION="${STEPS_GET_VERSION_OUTPUTS_PACKAGE_VERSION}"
+
+          # On the pull_request merge event RELEASE_PR_BODY is the merged "Version Packages"
+          # PR body, which holds the changelog. On a workflow_dispatch re-run (the recovery
+          # path after a failed merge-triggered run) there is no pull_request context, so it's
+          # empty. Fall back to the body of the most recently merged changeset-release/main PR
+          # so the "What's changed" section is still populated.
+          if [ -z "${RELEASE_PR_BODY}" ]; then
+            echo "RELEASE_PR_BODY is empty (workflow_dispatch re-run); fetching merged changeset-release/main PR body"
+            RELEASE_PR_BODY="$(gh pr list --repo triggerdotdev/trigger.dev \
+              --head changeset-release/main --state merged \
+              --json body,mergedAt --limit 10 \
+              -q 'sort_by(.mergedAt) | reverse | .[0].body')"
+          fi
+          export RELEASE_PR_BODY
+
           node scripts/generate-github-release.mjs "$VERSION" > /tmp/release-body.md
           PRERELEASE_FLAG=""
           if [ "${STEPS_GET_VERSION_OUTPUTS_IS_PRERELEASE}" = "true" ]; then

scripts/generate-github-release.mjs

@@ -239,6 +239,21 @@ async function main() {
   }
 
   const changesContent = extractChangesFromPrBody(prBody);
+
+  // Fail loudly when a stable (non-prerelease) release resolved no changelog. This
+  // guards against publishing an empty "What's changed" section, which previously
+  // happened silently on workflow_dispatch re-runs where RELEASE_PR_BODY was empty.
+  // Prereleases (any version with a hyphen, e.g. 4.5.0-rc.0) are allowed to be empty.
+  const isPrerelease = version.includes("-");
+  if (!changesContent && !isPrerelease) {
+    console.error(
+      `Error: no "What's changed" content could be resolved for v${version}. ` +
+        `RELEASE_PR_BODY was empty or contained no changelog entries. ` +
+        `Refusing to publish a release with an empty changelog.`
+    );
+    process.exit(1);
+  }
+
   const contributors = getContributors(getPreviousVersion(version));
   const packages = getPublishedPackages();