Requiring manual step in release of new At Versions to automation

[stalgiag]

Background

For background on the current AT version update process, please refer to this document.

Recommendation

We are currently researching and planning work to streamline the release of new At Versions to the app. The goal is to reduce the delay between At Version release and automation support.

We also aim to reduce the effort needed to make a release. We will attempt to reduce this effort to a minimum but we are currently not recommending that this process be fully automatic (ie: a release of an official at version initiates a process which automatically adds that version to Aria-AT app automation)

Rationale

• Maintaining a manual review step ensures that any new AT version undergoes a required smoke test to validate baseline functionality.
• Automatic addition risks masking configuration or compatibility issues that become evident only through human oversight.
• Although streamlining initiatives are underway to reduce overall effort, they do not eliminate the need for deliberate verification before deployment.
• Issue caused by at versions being used with automation before full compatibility is confirmed (see current issue with macOS 15 runner on Github) could generate confusion in manual review of automated tests
• The effort to implement these automated processes is nontrivial
• Any processes produced towards this effort would be vulnerable to upstream changes since there is not an existing central release channel for the at versions used for automation. This suggests significant maintenance requirements