A version number now has exactly two shapes

A MeshWeaver version is now one of two things and nothing else: X.Y.Z-ci.<n> for every continuous or temporary build, and a clean X.Y.Z for the release. No rc, no preview, no beta, no labelled line. The -ci.<n> part is a channel marker rather than a version — it says which publication of the line you are looking at — and the release is a promotion of one of those sealed builds, retagged, never rebuilt. That is what leaves nothing for a "candidate" label to mark. (The opt-in edge images are the same builds under a renamed channel, X.Y.Z-edge.<n>; no install takes one unless it is asked to.)

The rule is written down once, in Release Process & Versioning, and enforced where it is composed: Directory.Build.props no longer carries the branch that produced a labelled line's .ci. separator, and a new guard evaluates both the maintained number and the composed version through real MSBuild on every pull request. It fails if either leaves the two shapes, and it carries a control arm that feeds it the retired shape so that it can be seen to fail.

The reason is an ordering one. SemVer compares pre-release identifiers as text, so "ci" sorts below "rc" and a 3.0.0-ci.<n> build ranks under 3.0.0-rc8 for every n. On 2026-09-07 that held every self-update candidate on both hosted portals: 42 module packages declared floors naming a platform that no longer existed — the registry held 1268 image tags, 48 of them 3.0.0-ci.* and not one rc — while the portals logged a hold and carried on. One label in the whole scheme means there is no label left to sort against.

One half of the hazard is deliberately still there, and the page says so: a clean 3.0.0 really does outrank its own 3.0.0-ci.<n> builds, which is exactly how an install on the Stable channel reaches the release it is waiting for. Retiring rc was never about making pre-release ordering stop mattering.