Release v0.6.1

Release notes for 0.6.1, the dashboard reliability release.

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Highlights

Dashboard Controls

The dashboard script used to stop all of its controls when the browser fired beforeunload or pagehide. A same-tab link that only downloads a file, such as the policy signature, fires beforeunload while the page stays open, and a page restored from the browser's back/forward cache comes back after pagehide. In both cases Expand View and the filters stopped responding until a reload. The script now stops only on a real unload (pagehide that is not kept in the cache) and refreshes the feed age when the page is restored.

Latest Update Notices

Expand View now ends with one notice per version in Microsoft's Release Health table, in Microsoft's order, for example:

> Windows 11 26H2 received its latest update on Tuesday, 29 September 2026: build 26300.9550 (2026-09 D, optional preview).

Each notice carries the release, build, update label, and KB number as tags, and links "Read more" to Microsoft's support article for that build when release history lists one that passes the same safe-URL check as other support links. B means the monthly security update, D an optional preview, and OOB an out-of-band update. LTSC and Hotpatch rows are labelled as such, and a version listed twice for the same channel and build is shown once. The notices are derived from the signed policy for display only: they count as notices, never become GitHub issues, and never affect a verdict. In the collapsed view they stay inside the +N more group, so real source diagnostics stay on top.

Dates

Dashboard dates use one long format in Berlin time, for example "Friday, 9 October 2026, 15:52:04 CEST" (CET in winter). Timestamps that already state UTC, such as the source Fetched times, stay in UTC, and dual-zone timestamps show both: "Tuesday, 9 June 2026, 02:00:00 CEST / 00:00:00 UTC". Microsoft's Release Health dates carry no time of day, so they are shown as a date only, for example "Tuesday, 29 September 2026", instead of an invented midnight. ISO dates inside diagnostic messages are rewritten the same way when the dashboard renders them; the signed policy JSON keeps its ISO values.

Publish Failure Issue

The managed Publish policy is failing issue already quoted errors from the unsigned preview generation. The signed generation and the policy and signature validation in the build job now also write their output to a log that is uploaded when the job fails, and the report job passes both logs to tools/report_publish_status.py, which accepts --generation-log more than once. The log is quoted into a public issue and Actions log masking does not cover files, so before the upload the job drops the log if it contains the signing key or anything tools/scan_for_secret_material.py flags. Workflow command prefixes such as ::error:: are removed from the quoted excerpt.

Target Hold Reason

The hold reason now ends after the held target and its baseline, for example "Windows 11 26H2 has no B release yet (available since Tuesday, 29 September 2026), so 25H2 stays the broad target with required baseline 26200.9445." It fits the dashboard's 150-character diagnostic summary, so it is no longer cut off.

Release Gate Result

Local 0.6.1 release preparation passes compileall, the project identity, version consistency, and GitHub Actions pin audits, the full pytest suite, signed fixture generation, secret scanning, and clean archive export and validation, and the live --check-policy-source and --check-public-pages checks pass. The tagged release in the Tagged Release Lane reruns the full deployment gate.

Packaging And PyPI

Unchanged Boundaries

Verify Commands

python -m compileall -q win11_release_guard tools tests
python tools/check_version_consistency.py
python tools/check_project_identity.py
python tools/check_github_action_versions.py
$env:PYTEST_DISABLE_PLUGIN_AUTOLOAD="1"; python -m pytest -q
python -m win11_release_guard --self-test
python -m win11_release_guard --check-policy-source
python tools/export_clean_archive.py --output dist/win11_release_guard-source.zip
python tools/export_clean_archive.py --validate dist/win11_release_guard-source.zip

Full Change Notes

The complete change list recorded for v0.6.1.

Added

• The expanded Source Diagnostics view ends with one notice per Windows 11 version from the Release Health table: the date of its latest update, its build, the update label and kind, its KB number, and a "Read more" link to the Microsoft support article for that build when release history lists a safe one.

Fixed

• The dashboard script stops its controls only on a real unload. A same-tab download link or a back/forward cache restore no longer leaves Expand View and the filters unresponsive until a reload, and a restored page refreshes the feed age.
• The build job of publish-policy.yml logs the signed generation and the policy and signature validation, uploads the log when it fails, and the report job passes it to tools/report_publish_status.py, so the managed issue quotes the error. A log that contains the signing key or other secret material is never uploaded.
• The target hold reason fits the dashboard's 150-character summary.

Changed

• Dashboard dates use the long Berlin-time format, keep explicit UTC timestamps in UTC, and show Release Health date-only values without a time of day.

Related Pages

Home | GitHub Pages Dashboard | Troubleshooting | Tagged Release Lane | Release v0.6.0