docs(release): realign release-checklist templates with per-PR changelogs

[gustavovalverde]

Motivation

The manual release-checklist templates describe a release flow Zebra no longer uses. They tell the releaser to curate the changelog from scratch at release time (move entries out of [Unreleased], delete trivial ones, combine duplicates, run cargo semver-checks per crate to pick the release level). Under the per-PR model, those entries are already authored and curated in each PR, and breaking changes are declared per PR with a conventional-commit ! and enforced by the semver-checks CI gate. The hotfix template also points at two things that do not exist.

Solution

In release-checklist-legacy.md, the changelog and crate-version steps now rename the already-curated [Unreleased] heading to the version and confirm the existing entries, instead of curating from scratch. The manual cargo semver-checks / cargo public-api / ziff tooling moves into a "Verify the API bump (backstop)" subsection, framed as a fallback behind the per-PR gate (and for when the gate cannot run, such as a yanked previous release).

In hotfix-release-checklist.md, the gate references check-no-git-dependencies (the real check name) instead of check_no_git_refs_in_cargo_lock, and the pre-release test links zfnd-ci-integration-tests-gcp.yml instead of the nonexistent ci-tests.yml.

The automated release-plz flow is unchanged; these are the manual fallback templates.

AI Disclosure

AI tools were used: Claude drafted the template edits.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates Zebra's two manual release-checklist PR templates to match the project's current per-PR changelog model. Previously the templates instructed the releaser to curate the changelog from scratch at release time and to run cargo semver-checks per crate to pick a release level. Under the per-PR model those entries are already authored/curated in each PR, so the templates now rename the existing [Unreleased] section and only confirm the entries, with the manual API-diff tooling demoted to a fallback "backstop" subsection. It also corrects two stale references in the hotfix template. These are manual-fallback templates only; the automated release-plz flow is untouched.

Changes:

• Rewrites the changelog and crate-version steps in release-checklist-legacy.md to rename/confirm already-curated [Unreleased] entries, and moves cargo semver-checks / cargo public-api / ziff into a "Verify the API bump (backstop)" subsection.
• Fixes the hotfix template's CI check reference from check_no_git_refs_in_cargo_lock to the real check-no-git-dependencies (verified against tests-unit.yml).
• Fixes the hotfix template's pre-release test link from the nonexistent ci-tests.yml to zfnd-ci-integration-tests-gcp.yml (verified to exist).

Assessment: The two corrected references are accurate. The main concern (IMPORTANT) is that the new backstop section asserts a "per-PR cargo-semver-checks CI gate" already enforces breaking-change markers, but no such workflow exists anywhere in the repository — only a PR-title conventional-commits check, which does not inspect the API surface. This makes the "backstop" framing potentially misleading and should be confirmed or reworded.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/release-checklist-legacy.md	Reframes changelog/crate-version steps around per-PR [Unreleased] entries; adds a "Verify the API bump (backstop)" subsection that references a CI gate not present in the repo.
.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/hotfix-release-checklist.md	Corrects the CI check name to check-no-git-dependencies and the pre-release test link to zfnd-ci-integration-tests-gcp.yml (both verified).

[gustavovalverde]

admin-merging because of flaky tests