[robzolkos]

What

scripts/release.sh runs make release-check without its own DRY_RUN in the environment, and gives the nested make an empty one.

Why

make release VERSION=vX.Y.Z DRY_RUN=1, the rehearsal RELEASING.md documents, passed DRY_RUN=1 down to make release-check, which runs test-sync-skills. sync-skills.sh reads a variable of the same name and accepts only local or remote, so every case failed:

not ok - sync as hey-cli succeeded
    ERROR: DRY_RUN must be unset, 'local' or 'remote', not '1'

Unsetting the shell variable alone is not enough: a DRY_RUN=1 given on make's command line also travels to the nested make through MAKEFLAGS. A real release sets no DRY_RUN and was unaffected. basecamp-cli and hey-cli already keep the switch out of the checks in their release scripts; this does the same here.

Testing

• make check passes
• From a make given DRY_RUN=1, a nested make test-sync-skills fails 33 assertions; env -u DRY_RUN make DRY_RUN= test-sync-skills passes them all.

Confidence Score: 5/5

The change appears safe to merge.

Summary

Clears inherited DRY_RUN in scripts/test-sync-skills.sh so release rehearsals do not pass an unsupported value to the sync script.

• The skills-sync test clears release dry-run settings before its cases run.

_{Reviews (1) · Last reviewed commit: "Let the release dry run pass the skills-..." · Reviewed by Greptile}

[Copilot]

🟢 Approved

No active review issues are recorded for the change isolating skills-sync tests from inherited release dry-run settings.

No open issues 🎉

What changed in this PR

This PR prevents the skills-sync test from failing during the documented make release VERSION=vX.Y.Z DRY_RUN=1 rehearsal.

Changes:

• Clears inherited DRY_RUN before running test cases, leaving individual cases free to set their own value.
• Adds a comment explaining the conflict between release and skills-sync dry-run values.

[!TIP]
If you aren't ready for review, convert to a draft PR.
Click "Convert to draft" or run gh pr ready --undo.
Click "Ready for review" or run gh pr ready to reengage.

File	Description
scripts/​test-sync-skills.sh	Unsets inherited DRY_RUN to isolate test cases from release settings.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

_{You’re at about 94% of the monthly reviewed-line limit. You may want to disable incremental reviews to conserve quota. Reviews will continue until that limit is exceeded. If you need help avoiding interruptions, please contact contact@cubic.dev.}

_{View guided diff | Turn on auto-fix | Re-trigger cubic}