fix(scripts): drop unnecessary type assertions in stage-publish runner (unblocks Check)

[John-David Dalton (jdalton)]

What

The 🔎 Check CI job (pnpm run check --all) is red on main — and therefore on every open socket-cli PR — because the type-aware oxlint gate flags five unnecessary type assertions in scripts/repo/stage-publish-cli-exe.mts:

##[error]This assertion is unnecessary since it does not change the type of the expression.  (×5)
Found 0 warnings and 5 errors.

This removes those five assertions. No rule was disabled and no oxlint-disable was added — the code is fixed so the type-aware rule passes on its own.

Why unblocking this matters

Check gates the whole PR fleet. While it's red on main, every PR inherits a red Check regardless of its contents, which hides real regressions. Fixing the root cause greens Check for all socket-cli PRs (same fleet-wide win as the cmd-ci snapshot fix).

The findings (all type-aware no-unnecessary-type-assertion)

• 4× arr[i]! in indexed for loops (lines ~103, ~270, ~285, ~292). The tsconfig does not enable noUncheckedIndexedAccess, so arr[i] is already the non-nullable element type — the ! changes nothing. Dropped the !.
• 1× (e as { code: unknown }).code (line ~193) inside an e && typeof e === 'object' && 'code' in e branch. After that narrowing, e.code is already accessible as unknown — the cast changes nothing. Replaced with e.code.

Removing an assertion the type-checker itself deems redundant is type-safe by definition (the assertion did not alter the type).

Verification (proof)

scripts/repo/stage-publish-cli-exe.mts is a build/release script with no unit tests; the type-aware lint gate is the relevant check.

• Before (this file, on main): the type-aware pass reports 5 errors — see the Check job on the latest main run.
• After (this branch): pnpm run lint:all (the same whole-tree gate that runs the --type-aware oxlint leg) passes clean:

$ pnpm run lint:all
Lint scope: all
Running oxlint on all files…
Formatting all files…
Checking formatting...
All matched files use the correct format.
Finished in 3711ms on 1387 files using 14 threads.
Lint passed
# exit 0

Note on the other red checks

The 🧪 Test job still fails on the unrelated cmd-ci.test.mts branch-name banner snapshot, which fails on every non-main PR (tracked separately). This PR only addresses the 🔎 Check failure.

---

Note

Low Risk
Lint-only cleanup in a release script; assertions were provably redundant and runtime behavior is unchanged.

Overview
Clears five type-aware oxlint no-unnecessary-type-assertion errors in scripts/repo/stage-publish-cli-exe.mts so the Check CI job can pass again.

In indexed for loops over parts and targets, arr[i]! becomes arr[i] because the indexed element type is already non-nullable under the script’s tsconfig. In the spawn error handler, (e as { code: unknown }).code becomes e.code after the existing typeof / 'code' in e narrowing.

No publish or staging behavior changes—only redundant assertions removed so pnpm run lint:all / check stays green.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit c63d556. Configure here.}

[John-David Dalton (jdalton)]

Closing — this fix is wrong, and CI proved it.

Removing the assertions clears the type-aware oxlint finding but breaks the tsc gate in the same 🔎 Check job:

Argument of type 'StageTarget | undefined' is not assignable to parameter of type 'StageTarget'.
'target' is possibly 'undefined'.

Root cause is a fleet tooling contradiction, not a code smell in this file:

• tsc gate — tsconfig.check.json → tsconfig.check.base.json → tsconfig.base.json sets noUncheckedIndexedAccess: true and includes scripts/**/*.mts, so arr[i] is T | undefined and the ! is required.
• socket/prefer-cached-for-loop (error) — mandates the exact for (let i = 0, { length } = arr; …) { const item = arr[i]! } shape for .mts files (its own docs say the ! "suppresses TS18048 under noUncheckedIndexedAccess"). for...of is auto-reverted to this shape, so it's not an escape.
• type-aware no-unnecessary-type-assertion (tsgolint) — finds no tsconfig.json at or above scripts/ (there is none; the fleet tsconfigs live under .config/fleet/), so it type-checks with defaults where noUncheckedIndexedAccess is off, sees arr[i] as T, and flags the mandated ! as unnecessary.

So the same ! is simultaneously required (tsc + prefer-cached-for-loop) and forbidden (type-aware). It can't be resolved in this file without breaking a gate or adding a banned oxlint-disable.

The correct fix is at the config boundary — point the --type-aware oxlint pass at the strict tsconfig (or disable no-unnecessary-type-assertion, which structurally conflicts with prefer-cached-for-loop + noUncheckedIndexedAccess). That's a fleet/wheelhouse-template change (related to the oxlint-plugin reconciliation), so it needs an owner call rather than a per-repo patch.