Why this matters

Everything built across M1–M7 lives in your development environment. This module gets it out into the world. The Nextcloud app store is the primary distribution channel — it's how administrators discover, install, and update apps directly from the Nextcloud interface, without touching the server filesystem.

The release process has four distinct stages:

1. Prepare — bump the version, update the changelog, fill in the store metadata in info.xml
2. Build — create a production build from a clean clone with development files removed
3. Sign — sign the clean build with your private key so Nextcloud can verify its integrity on install
4. Submit — host the tarball, upload the release to the store, push the git tag

The order matters. Signing must happen after building and cleaning, and submitting must happen after signing. This module walks through each stage in sequence.