docs: Add CEO-facing release readiness + business plan interface

[IanFrelinger]

Summary

Add comprehensive release readiness and business plan interface document for founder/CEO decision-making on v0.x public release vs design-partner private.

This document provides:

• Runtime release bar (Ashlar) with specific P0 issues tracked
• Product release bar (Forge / Ashlar.Forge) with phased rollout plan
• Business plan mapping to commercial funnel stages (Aware/Eval/Embed/Design partner/Paid)
• Binary go/no-go checklist for v0.x release
• CEO-only actions list (branch protection, Pages, social preview, PAT, contact channel)

Current recommendation: Design-partner private first (runtime ready, Forge hold-mode), then CEO actions, then public v0.x.

Changes

• Created docs/release/RELEASE-READINESS.md — comprehensive CEO-facing document covering:
  • Section 1: Runtime release bar with P0 issue tracking (P0: Close certification trust signature holes (limitations 7-9) #513 trust holes, CI Hardening: Add complementary required checks beyond cert-gate SPOF #511 CI redundancy, P1: Integrate certified loop into live extender path #512 cert-loop integration, Add professional marketing landing page with clean developer-tool aesthetic #505/docs: revert premature ashlar-cli image references to nexo-cli #506/fix: Resolve marketing landing page defects after PR #505 #514 landing/docs honesty)
  • Section 2: Product release bar (Forge scaffold, Verify phased plan, Cursor-safe claims gate blocked on P3 ledger)
  • Section 3: Business plan mapping — funnel stages with specific readiness criteria and what sales/marketing may vs must-not claim at each stage
  • Section 4: Go/no-go checklist — binary decision framework with ALL-must-be-true criteria for public v0.x vs design-partner private
  • Section 5: CEO-only actions — step-by-step instructions for branch protection update, GitHub Pages deployment, social preview upload, Discussions enablement, Forge PAT
  • Section 6: Release decision summary with 6-month success metrics (10 design partners → 3 paid, $124k ARR target)
  • Section 7: Open risks and mitigations (P3 delay, churn, competitive pressure, CI SPOF, contact channel)
  • Section 8: Reference documentation appendix (links to certification-evidence.md, SELF-EXTEND-AUDIT.md, trust-loop spec, commercial plan, deployment docs)

Testing

This PR adds documentation only. No runtime code changes.

Verification performed:

• ✅ All referenced issues exist and have correct status (P0: Close certification trust signature holes (limitations 7-9) #513 closed, CI Hardening: Add complementary required checks beyond cert-gate SPOF #511 closed, P1: Integrate certified loop into live extender path #512 closed, Add professional marketing landing page with clean developer-tool aesthetic #505/506/514 closed)
• ✅ All referenced documentation files exist (certification-evidence.md, SELF-EXTEND-AUDIT.md, trust-loop/ashlar-trust-loop-spec.md, CommercialExtractionPlan.md, etc.)
• ✅ Funnel stage mapping aligns with README.md commercial model (Community free → Builder/Team/Enterprise)
• ✅ CEO action instructions match actual GitHub Settings paths (verified against repo settings)
• ✅ Business claims grounded in evidence ledger (no false "production-ready autonomous" claims)
• ✅ Pricing matches marketing landing page (site/index.html) — Builder ~$8k/yr, Team ~$25k/yr, Enterprise $75k+/yr
• ✅ Known limitations section references correct line numbers in source docs (certification-evidence.md lines 644-830, SELF-EXTEND-AUDIT.md line 103)

Testing strategy (blast radius)

Documentation-only change; no kernel, infrastructure, or application code modified.

• make kernel-coverage-gate — Not applicable (no kernel code changes)
• make kernel-gate — Not applicable (no kernel code changes)
• make test-prod-style — Not applicable (no production code changes)

Checklist

• make test passes locally — N/A (documentation only)
• Documentation updated (entire scope of PR)
• No TODO or NotImplementedException left unresolved — N/A (no code)
• Breaking changes are documented — N/A (additive documentation)

Release (only when this PR ships a versioned NuGet/GHCR release)

• Not a versioned release — skip

Context

This document was requested to provide the CEO with a single authoritative source for:

1. Understanding which P0 issues must close before public release
2. Mapping technical release bars to business funnel stages
3. Making binary go/no-go decisions with clear criteria
4. Taking specific actions only CEO/admin can perform

Grounded in existing documentation:

• docs/certification-evidence.md (limitations 1-9, known v0 gaps)
• docs/SELF-EXTEND-AUDIT.md (invariants A-D, convergence gap line 103)
• docs/trust-loop/ashlar-trust-loop-spec.md (gate legs specification)
• docs/CommercialExtractionPlan.md (open-core boundary)
• docs/DistributionModels.md (NuGet, HTTP, CLI, compose, mesh)
• Issue tracker (P0: Close certification trust signature holes (limitations 7-9) #513, P1: Integrate certified loop into live extender path #512, CI Hardening: Add complementary required checks beyond cert-gate SPOF #511, docs: revert premature ashlar-cli image references to nexo-cli #506, Add professional marketing landing page with clean developer-tool aesthetic #505, fix: Resolve marketing landing page defects after PR #505 #514)

Tone: Precise, founder-useful, no hype. Honest about what is/isn't ready.

References

• Closes: (none — this is a planning/decision document, not closing open issues)
• Related: P0: Close certification trust signature holes (limitations 7-9) #513 (trust holes), CI Hardening: Add complementary required checks beyond cert-gate SPOF #511 (CI SPOF), P1: Integrate certified loop into live extender path #512 (cert-loop integration), Add professional marketing landing page with clean developer-tool aesthetic #505 (landing page), docs: revert premature ashlar-cli image references to nexo-cli #506 (image references), fix: Resolve marketing landing page defects after PR #505 #514 (landing defects)