CHANGELOG.md is the repo's most contended file (205 changes since July): every user-facing change appends an entry near the top, so any two in-flight branches conflict there — and it keeps biting on real merges. The SOTA fix is per-change fragments (the towncrier/changesets pattern, which is also the shape the ledger already uses): each change commits one fragment file with a collision-proof name, and the release cut — which already owns CHANGELOG writes via launch ship (adr-37) — assembles the dated section and deletes the fragments. Zero contention by construction; the changelog-driven release flow is unchanged, only its input format widens

CHANGELOG.md is the repo's most contended file (205 changes since July): every user-facing change appends an entry near the top, so any two in-flight branches conflict there — and it keeps biting on real merges. The SOTA fix is per-change fragments (the towncrier/changesets pattern, which is also the shape the ledger already uses): each change commits one fragment file with a collision-proof name, and the release cut — which already owns CHANGELOG writes via launch ship (adr-37) — assembles the dated section and deletes the fragments. Zero contention by construction; the changelog-driven release flow is unchanged, only its input format widens

Grounds

• pursued: no change appends to a shared changelog entry any more, so the contention this record measured is gone by construction; shown wrong if two in-flight branches conflict on CHANGELOG.md outside a release cut