fix(github-actions): use robot PAT for release creation to trigger release notes

[SandyTao520]

TLDR

This PR updates the release workflows to use the GEMINI_CLI_ROBOT_GITHUB_PAT instead of the default GITHUB_TOKEN for release creation. This ensures that the release-notes.yml workflow (and any others triggered by release events) can be correctly executed by GitHub Actions.

Dive Deeper

GitHub Actions restricts the default GITHUB_TOKEN from triggering other workflows to prevent recursive runs. Since our automated release processes (nightly, patch, and promotion) were using the default token, the release: published event was not triggering the release notes generation workflow. Switching to a robot PAT resolves this limitation.

Key changes:

• Updated .github/workflows/release-nightly.yml to use robot PAT for version calculation, publishing, and issue creation.
• Updated .github/workflows/release-patch-3-release.yml to use robot PAT for version calculation, publishing, issue creation, and PR comments.
• Updated .github/workflows/release-promote.yml to use robot PAT for version calculation, publishing, and issue creation.

Reviewer Test Plan

Verification requires observing the behavior of an actual release.

1. Trigger a dry-run of any release workflow to ensure no regressions in the release process itself.
2. For full validation, a real release (e.g., a nightly release) should be monitored to confirm that the Generate Release Notes workflow is automatically triggered upon release publication.

Testing Matrix

	🍏	🪟	🐧
npm run	✅	❓	❓
npx	✅	❓	❓
Docker	❓	❓	❓
Podman	❓	-	-
Seatbelt	❓	-	-

Linked issues / bugs

#18007

[gemini-code-assist]

Note

Gemini is unable to generate a summary for this pull request due to the file types involved not being currently supported.

[gemini-cli]

Hi @SandyTao520, thank you so much for your contribution to Gemini CLI! We really appreciate the time and effort you've put into this.

We're making some updates to our contribution process to improve how we track and review changes. Please take a moment to review our recent discussion post: Improving Our Contribution Process & Introducing New Guidelines.

Key Update: Starting January 26, 2026, the Gemini CLI project will require all pull requests to be associated with an existing issue. Any pull requests not linked to an issue by that date will be automatically closed.

Thank you for your understanding and for being a part of our community!

[gemini-cli]

Hi there! Thank you for your contribution to Gemini CLI.

To improve our contribution process and better track changes, we now require all pull requests to be associated with an existing issue, as announced in our recent discussion and as detailed in our CONTRIBUTING.md.

This pull request is being closed because it is not currently linked to an issue. Once you have updated the description of this PR to link an issue (e.g., by adding Fixes #123 or Related to #123), it will be automatically reopened.

How to link an issue:
Add a keyword followed by the issue number (e.g., Fixes #123) in the description of your pull request. For more details on supported keywords and how linking works, please refer to the GitHub Documentation on linking pull requests to issues.

Thank you for your understanding and for being a part of our community!

[github-actions]

Size Change: -2 B (0%)

Total Size: 24.3 MB

ℹ️ View Unchanged

Filename	Size	Change
./bundle/gemini.js	24.3 MB	-2 B (0%)
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-closed.sb	1.03 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-open.sb	890 B	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-proxied.sb	1.31 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-closed.sb	3.29 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-open.sb	3.36 kB	0 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-proxied.sb	3.56 kB	0 B

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