[release/13.5] Fix mixed-quality staging package discovery

[Mitch Denny (mitchdenny)]

Backport of #19426 to release/13.5

/cc Mitch Denny (@mitchdenny)

Customer Impact

With stable-shaped 13.5 staging builds, TypeScript AppHosts cannot discover build-matched prerelease-only integrations from the SHA-specific staging feed. For example, Azure Kubernetes 13.5.0-preview.1.26415.2 is available to C# AppHosts but omitted for TypeScript, leaving users with unrelated daily/PR-hive versions instead.

Testing

On release/13.5, restore succeeded and 30 focused Aspire.Cli.Tests passed covering PackagingService, PackageChannel, AddCommand, and PrebuiltAppHostServer; parser checks also passed for the changed Bash and PowerShell debug scripts. The source PR additionally passed the full CLI test project and C#/TypeScript runtime matrices across PR, daily, staging, and released identities, including aspire new, aspire init, Redis, and Azure Kubernetes.

Risk

Low. The production change is scoped to official staging identities and their SHA-specific feed. Released Stable and Daily remain strict, feature-flag-only staging remains Stable, and existing exact-package fallback is unchanged. The release conflict was test-only and preserves the release test set plus the source PR's quality-contract regressions.

Regression?

Yes — #17452 caused generated polyglot AppHosts to persist their CLI channel, activating the latent stable-only narrowing behavior. #17728 restored prerelease discovery for packages already on NuGet.org; this backport fixes the remaining packages available only from the current SHA-specific staging feed.

[github-actions]

🚀 Dogfood this PR with:

⚠️ WARNING: Do not do this without first carefully reviewing the code of this PR to satisfy yourself it is safe.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.sh | bash -s -- 19427

Or

• Run remotely in PowerShell:

iex "& { $(irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.ps1) } 19427"

[github-actions]

Tests selector (audit mode)

The full test matrix and all jobs still run in audit mode. The tests and jobs below are what selective CI would run under enforcement.

2 / 100 test projects · 5 jobs, from 11 changed files.

Selected test projects (2 / 100)

Aspire.Cli.EndToEnd.Tests, Aspire.Cli.Tests

Selected jobs (5)

cli-starter, deployment-e2e, extension-e2e, polyglot, typescript-api-compat

---

How these were chosen — grouped by what changed

📦 affected project Aspire.Cli
→ 1 test: Aspire.Cli.EndToEnd.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Commands/AddCommandTests.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackageChannelTests.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackagingServiceTests.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Projects/PrebuiltAppHostServerTests.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/TestServices/TestAppHostProjectFactory.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

🧪 tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Utils/CliTestHelper.cs (changed test)
→ 1 directly: Aspire.Cli.Tests

Job reasons

Job	Triggered by
cli-starter	• affected project Aspire.Cli • selected test Aspire.Cli.Tests
deployment-e2e	affected project Aspire.Cli
extension-e2e	• src/Aspire.Cli/Packaging/PackagingService.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Commands/AddCommandTests.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackageChannelTests.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackagingServiceTests.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Projects/PrebuiltAppHostServerTests.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/TestServices/TestAppHostProjectFactory.cs, tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Utils/CliTestHelper.cs • affected project Aspire.Cli
polyglot	affected project Aspire.Cli
typescript-api-compat	affected project Aspire.Cli

---

Selection computed for commit f03d6d7.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Backports the staging package-discovery fix so stable-shaped staging CLIs discover both stable and prerelease-only integrations from their SHA-specific feed.

Changes:

• Sets official staging channels to Both quality.
• Adds package-quality, channel-selection, and TypeScript discovery regression tests.
• Updates staging validation scripts and documentation.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/Aspire.Cli/Packaging/PackagingService.cs	Broadens official staging discovery.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Utils/CliTestHelper.cs	Removes obsolete version-shape override.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/TestServices/TestAppHostProjectFactory.cs	Enables package-add test callbacks.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Projects/PrebuiltAppHostServerTests.cs	Updates staging service coverage.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackagingServiceTests.cs	Tests mixed-quality staging discovery.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Packaging/PackageChannelTests.cs	Tests quality filtering contracts.
tests/Aspire.Cli.Tests/Commands/AddCommandTests.cs	Tests channel/version selection matrices.
eng/scripts/debug-stable.sh	Updates expected staging quality.
eng/scripts/debug-stable.ps1	Updates expected staging quality.
eng/scripts/debug-aspire-channel.sh	Exercises TypeScript package discovery.
eng/scripts/debug-aspire-channel.ps1	Exercises TypeScript package discovery.
docs/cli-staging-validation.md	Documents mixed-quality staging behavior.
.agents/skills/cli-channel-debugging/SKILL.md	Updates channel-emulation guidance.

Review details

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• Files reviewed: 13/13 changed files
• Comments generated: 0
• Review effort level: Balanced

[aspire-repo-bot]

✅ No documentation update needed.

Step 5 branch taken: excluded → base_branch_is_release, title_release_prefix, body_backport_marker

signals.json sets excluded: true, which overrides the recommendation field regardless of triggered_signals (0 signals fired; signal_count: 0).

Exclusion reasons (from signals.json):

• base_branch_is_release — base ref is release/13.5
• title_release_prefix — PR title is prefixed [release/13.5]
• body_backport_marker — PR body states "Backport of Fix mixed-quality staging package discovery #19426 to release/13.5"

This is a backport PR that ports an already-merged change (#19426) onto release/13.5. Per workflow policy, backports are documented against the original forward PR on the default branch, so no duplicate docs PR is drafted here.