Retire rules.publish from changelog render command

[lcawl]

Summary

Relates to #2917

Retires rules.publish from the changelog render command.
The retirement is backward-compatible and includes clear user communication through deprecation warnings.

Scope

• In scope: Remove rules.publish usage from the changelog render CLI path
• Out of scope: Removal from config schema (separate deprecation effort). The YAML may still be parsed for backward compatibility but treated as unused.
• Includes: Remove ReleaseNotesSerialization.LoadPublishBlocker() (dead code after retirement)

Implementation

1. ChangelogRenderUtilities

• ShouldHideEntry: Remove the rules.publish block entirely. Keep only feature-id check. When context?.Configuration?.Rules?.Publish is present, it is no longer applied; ShouldHide is determined solely by featureIdsToHide.
• GetComponent: Stop using GetPublishBlockerForEntry. Always use entry.Areas?[0] ?? string.Empty for subsection grouping (align with directive behavior).
• Remove: GetPublishBlockerForEntry and GetPublishBlockerForProduct (both private).

2. ChangelogRenderingService

• EmitBlockedEntryWarnings: Remove the entire method body's rules.publish logic. Simplest: remove the call to EmitBlockedEntryWarnings and delete the method.
• Remove: GetPublishBlockerForProduct and GetBlockReasons (only used for publish-rule warnings).
• Keep: GetEntryIdentifier if it has other uses; verify it's only for publish warnings before removing.

3. ChangelogConfigurationLoader

When rulesYaml.Publish != null, emit a deprecation warning: "rules.publish is deprecated and no longer used by the changelog render command. Move type/area filtering to rules.bundle, which applies at bundle time instead of render time.". Parse and load normally but set Rules.Publish = null so render command never sees it.

This approach:

• Is backward-compatible (configs don't break)
• Clearly notifies users the feature is ignored (warning message)
• Prepares for eventual removal (error can come in a future major version)

4. Test updates — BlockConfigurationTests (tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/Render/BlockConfigurationTests.cs)

All tests in this file exercise rules.publish behavior. With rules.publish retired:

• Rewrite tests to assert that rules.publish is ignored:
  • Configs that previously blocked entries (e.g. exclude_areas: [Allocation]) should now produce visible entries.
  • Remove or rewrite tests that assert "blocked entry is commented out" — they should assert "entry is visible (no blocking)".
• Remove tests that are purely about publish-rule semantics or convert them to verify non-blocking.
• Add explicit test: "Config with rules.publish emits deprecation warning and does not apply filtering."
• Add subsections test: "With --subsections enabled, entries are grouped by their first area (not filtered by rules.publish)."

5. Remove dead code

• Delete ReleaseNotesSerialization.LoadPublishBlocker() from src/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs
• Delete all tests in tests/Elastic.Documentation.Configuration.Tests/ReleaseNotes/LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs

6. Other test updates

• ChangelogConfigurationTests (tests/Elastic.Changelog.Tests/Changelogs/ChangelogConfigurationTests.cs): Tests that assert config.Rules.Publish is non-null now need updates. With our approach, configs that have rules.publish will have Rules.Publish = null. Update assertions accordingly.

Key Changes Summary

Code Removals:

• 1,681 lines deleted from BlockConfigurationTests.cs (all rules.publish render tests)
• 382 lines deleted from LoadPublishBlockerTests.cs (dead code)
• 109 lines removed from ChangelogRenderingService.cs (render blocking logic)
• 46 lines removed from ReleaseNotesSerialization.cs (dead code)
• 66 lines modified in ChangelogRenderUtilities.cs (simplified filtering)

Code Additions/Updates:

• Deprecation warning added in ChangelogConfigurationLoader.cs
• Test updates in ChangelogConfigurationTests.cs to verify Publish = null behavior
• Documentation updates in 4 files to reflect the retirement

Net Result: 2,325 lines deleted, 50 lines added = cleaner, simpler codebase

Impact

• Rules.bundle remains unchanged: Bundle-time filtering continues to work independently
• Users are warned: Deprecation warning guides users to migrate from rules.publish to rules.bundle

The implementation is production-ready and aligns the changelog render command with the {changelog} directive, which already doesn't use rules.publish.

Generative AI disclosure

1. Did you use a generative AI (GenAI) tool to assist in creating this contribution?

• Yes
• No

2. If you answered "Yes" to the previous question, please specify the tool(s) and model(s) used (e.g., Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT-4, etc.).

Tool(s) and model(s) used: composer-1.5, claude-4.5-haiku

[github-actions]

🔍 Preview links for changed docs

• docs/cli/release/changelog-render.md
• docs/contribute/changelog.md
• docs/syntax/changelog.md