Prerelease tag spelling changed at 6.0 (v6.0.0-a1 vs v5.4.0a1) #485

Summary

The two 6.0 prerelease tags are spelled with a hyphen, which every earlier prerelease tag in this repository is not. Anything that parses or sorts tags has to handle both spellings, and the version in package.json and the version Python reports no longer agree on the same string.

The inconsistency

v6.0.0-a2   <- new
v6.0.0-a1   <- new
v5.4.0a3
v5.4.0a2
v5.4.0a1
v5.4.0

v5.4.0a1 is PEP 440, which is what hatch version produces and what the Python package metadata uses. v6.0.0-a1 is the npm spelling, which is what package.json carries. The repo is a hybrid package with both, and until 6.0 the tags followed the Python side.

Why it is worth settling now rather than later

Both 6.0 alphas were tagged by hand (1583370 and dc59a6d each change only package.json), rather than through hatch version or the Jupyter Releaser workflow, which is how the spelling drifted. Picking one now costs nothing; picking one after 6.0.0 ships means either a visible inconsistency in the release list or retagging.

Concretely, git tag --sort=-v:refname already sorts these two families into separate runs, and a compare/vX...vY link built from the wrong spelling 404s.

Suggested fix

Decide which spelling is canonical, say so in RELEASE.md, and stick to it for v6.0.0. If PEP 440 wins, the two existing alpha tags can be re-tagged or simply left as an artifact of the alpha series with a note.

PR #482 adds a line to RELEASE.md telling the next person to match the existing history, and records that hatch version does not create the tag itself, which the file previously claimed.

Environment

NBI main at dc59a6d (6.0.0-a2).