The clean 3.0.0 — a release is a promotion, not a rebuild

The version you see under Settings → About changes shape today: continuous builds read 3.0.0-ci.<n>, and the release that follows will be a plain 3.0.0, after which the line moves to 3.1.0-ci.<n>. The -rc labels that ran from 3.0.0-rc1 to 3.0.0-rc13 are gone, and so is the reason they existed.

What changes for an install

• Continuous installs already on a 3.0.0-rc* build stay where they are until the clean 3.0.0 lands — SemVer sorts a 3.0.0-ci.<n> build below an rc build, so nothing rolls back and nothing rolls forward in between; the release outranks every rc, and after it 3.1.0-ci.<n> builds keep the roll going.
• Stable installs wait for the clean 3.0.0. When it lands it is the same bytes as the continuous build it was cut from: the release lane no longer compiles anything. It resolves the tagged commit's already-promoted, already-sealed set, retags the images with the clean version, copies the release marker under that name, publishes the GitHub Release from the committed release notes, and opens the pull request that moves the line to 3.1.0.
• Module authors compile against the platform image, as they have since bundles replaced packages. NuGet publication is retired with the rc line; the packages already on nuget.org stay listed as history and nothing in the fleet restores from them.

Why

A release built twice is two releases. The old tag lane rebuilt the portal from whatever the plugin repository's main happened to be at that minute, stamped no framework identity, and published no sealed content bake — so an install that took the clean tag would have recompiled every module at boot, and the self-updater's availability gate would rightly have refused it. Promotion removes the second producer: what is tagged is what was tested, baked and sealed.

The rc labels had a smaller problem with a large effect. SemVer compares pre-release identifiers as text, so rc13 sorts below rc2, and nuget.org listed rc9 as the newest pre-release for the whole run. A clean line has no such edge: 3.0.0-ci.7900 < 3.0.0 < 3.1.0-ci.1, and the build number is the only pre-release identifier left.

Full mechanics: Release Process & Versioning and Release & Self-Update Strategy.