fix(ci): release workflow is idempotent against an already-existing release

[open-coder-ai]

What

The v0.8.0 release exposed a real, recurring bug in .github/workflows/release.yml's release job. Its practice is to create the GitHub Release via the UI first (which creates the tag and the published release together) — that tag push is what triggers this workflow. By the time the release job runs, gh release create always finds the release object already there and fails: gh release create "$GITHUB_REF_NAME" ... errors on an existing release.

PyPI publish (the pypi job) is independent and had already succeeded — v0.8.0 is correctly on PyPI. But the failed release job step meant the platform binaries and their checksums were never attached to the release, silently, every time this has run this way.

The fix

Try gh release upload "$GITHUB_REF_NAME" dist/chock* dist/checksums.txt --clobber against the release that (almost always) already exists; fall back to the original gh release create only when none does, so a tag pushed without a pre-existing release (e.g. directly via git push --tags) still gets one. Doesn't touch the release's title or notes when it already exists — only attaches assets.

Verification

• python3 -c "import yaml; yaml.safe_load(...)" — YAML parses clean.
• Extracted the shell block and ran bash -n — syntax clean. (zizmor/actionlint need authenticated GitHub API access this local check didn't have; CI runs both.)
• Confirmed against the actual v0.8.0 failure: run 33624211179, release job, "Create GitHub Release" step — gh release create failing exactly as diagnosed.

Note

v0.8.0's release (https://github.com/open-coder-ai/chock/releases/tag/v0.8.0) currently has zero attached assets as a result of this bug. This PR prevents it recurring on the next tag; it doesn't retroactively attach v0.8.0's binaries (this session has no gh release upload access outside this workflow). If the platform binaries matter for v0.8.0 specifically, they can be downloaded from that same failed run's artifacts and uploaded by hand.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01RcphZmVVXoy8Jf2tUtcsC3

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