[Coldwings]

Refs #106

Prepare DART v0.4.0: finalize the changelog, align Helm chart/appVersion to 0.4.0/v0.4.0, and replace source-build-only role guidance with release deployment instructions. Document the incompatible v0.3.0/v0.4.0 peer boundary, coordinated rollout and rollback, cold caches, uniform topology settings and source-built image convention. No runtime or protocol behavior changes in this PR.

Validation: main and providers/k8s passed go vet ./..., go test ./... -race -count=1, go test ./... -cover -count=1, and go build ./...; independent golden references and all eight documentation checks passed. Helm strict lint and six discovery/role renders passed. Candidate static Linux amd64/arm64 archives have verified version/build provenance, bundled notices and checksums. Archive-extracted amd64 binaries passed six cache-mode smoke cases and two mixed-binary three-node role/P2P scenarios with counted HTTP payloads. ARM64 is cross-built only; no live Kubernetes rollout is claimed.

The release will be built again from the reviewed merged tag, verified and published after current-head CI and review. Issue #106 remains open until publication and download verification complete. Private cluster benchmarks are excluded.

Checklist

• Main/provider vet, race, coverage and builds pass
• Release and deployment documentation updated; no new package
• bash scripts/check-docs.sh passes
• No new ADR: this documents the existing accepted ADR-0009 through ADR-0013 contracts and changes release metadata only

[Coldwings]

Self-review complete. The diff changes release metadata and deployment documentation only. Helm chart/appVersion, role availability and image-tag examples agree on v0.4.0. The upgrade and rollback procedure requires draining and replacing every v0.3.0 peer, explicitly including all-ordinary clusters; the chart's rolling strategy is not presented as protocol compatibility. Root fanout, cold-cache and independent cache/receive budgets match accepted contracts.

Main/provider vet, race, coverage and builds, independent goldens, all documentation checks, strict Helm lint and six role/discovery renders pass. Candidate archives were checked for version, static linking, source provenance, bundled notices and SHA256. Archive-based standalone and three-node role/P2P tests pass; counted block bodies verify tree delivery without new origin requests after warmup. ARM64 and actual Kubernetes rollout limitations remain explicit. Release notes exclude private cluster benchmark figures.

[Coldwings]

Independent contract review reports no release-blocking findings for the current head. The reviewer traced the v0.3.0/v0.4.0 incompatibility, coordinated upgrade/rollback, root-fanout default, source-build image convention, shared heterogeneous discovery and cold-cache behavior against the implementation and ADR-0009 through ADR-0013. Documentation and whitespace checks pass; no private benchmark figures were introduced.

This review is static and does not claim live Kubernetes rollout validation or published-artifact provenance; artifact verification is tracked separately in the release workflow.

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

There are no active review issues for the v0.4.0 release metadata and deployment guidance changes.

No open issues 🎉

What changed in this PR

Prepares DART v0.4.0 release metadata and deployment guidance for #106 without changing runtime or protocol behavior. Publication and public-download verification remain separate follow-up work.

Changes:

• Finalizes the v0.4.0 changelog and aligns Helm chart/appVersion to 0.4.0/v0.4.0.
• Documents coordinated upgrades and rollbacks, incompatible peer versions, cold caches, and uniform topology settings.
• Updates role-aware deployment guidance while preserving source-built images and the default dev tag.

File	Description
README.md	Updates role support and coordinated-upgrade guidance.
docs/​k8s.md	Adds v0.4.0 deployment, upgrade, and rollback instructions.
deploy/​helm/​dart/​values.yaml	Updates release and compatibility comments; defaults remain unchanged.
deploy/​helm/​dart/​Chart.yaml	Sets chart version and appVersion for v0.4.0.
CHANGELOG.md	Finalizes the release entry and adds packaging and upgrade notes.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[Coldwings]

Independent artifact review found one publication blocker in the candidate packaging: scanning only dependency module roots omitted the nested go-json-experiment JSON license used by dart-k8s. The collector has been corrected to include license/notice files from compiled package directories and their ancestors, and Go PATENTS is also bundled. Corrected archives are being rebuilt and independently rechecked before publication.

The review otherwise verified archive checksums, architecture/static linking, source/toolchain provenance, version stamps and the bounded smoke-test claims. This packaging correction does not alter repository source or runtime behavior.

[Coldwings]

Independent re-review confirms the packaging blocker is resolved and reports no remaining candidate-artifact blocker. Both Kubernetes architectures now contain all 59 applicable external dependency notice files, independently byte-matched against the compiled package closures, including the nested JSON license. Go LICENSE/PATENTS, artifact checksums, source/toolchain provenance, static linkage, chart contents and smoke binary identities also pass.

The collector conservatively retains a small number of license-prefixed source files; these are harmless extras and are retained. This verdict covers the candidate artifacts. The merged tag will be rebuilt and independently verified before publication, followed by verification of downloaded published assets.

[Coldwings]

Final tagged artifacts have passed independent review. The reviewer verified that v0.4.0 points to the merged commit with the reviewed source tree, and checked all seven exact asset hashes, embedded VCS metadata, static binaries, bundled notices, chart contents and the identities of the smoke-tested executables. No artifact blockers remain.

The tag and release draft are uploaded. Publication remains gated on tag CI and download verification; ARM64 execution and live Kubernetes rollout remain explicitly outside the validation scope.