From ac5f9b8c8e1ac421c068c54b953126ca66c0d7c7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Joe Stringer <joe@cilium.io>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:04:48 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] release-notes: Ignore "NONE" release note

We're frequently seeing contributors fail to read instructions and put a
release note containing the text "NONE" in the release note section,
similar to the rules style that Kubernetes expects. Rather than push a
rock up a hill in convincing scores of new contributors to follow the
pattern we expect, let's just ignore any release note that contains the
text "NONE".

Signed-off-by: Joe Stringer <joe@cilium.io>
---
 pkg/github/labels.go      | 17 +++++++++++++++--
 pkg/github/labels_test.go |  8 ++++++++
 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/pkg/github/labels.go b/pkg/github/labels.go
index ad8b622..7752057 100644
--- a/pkg/github/labels.go
+++ b/pkg/github/labels.go
@@ -29,10 +29,16 @@ import (
 const (
 	releaseNoteBlock = "```release-note"
 	upstreamPRsBlock = "```upstream-prs"
-	commentTag       = "<!--"
 	endBlock         = "```"
 )
 
+var (
+	ignoreReleaseNoteFragments = []string{
+		"<!--",
+		"NONE",
+	}
+)
+
 // Get the text between startBlock and endBlock
 func textBlockBetween(body, startBlock string) string {
 	// Use a bufio.Scanner to scan line by line because it handles both `\n` and `\r\n`.
@@ -133,7 +139,14 @@ func getUpstreamPRsV2(block string) []int {
 func getReleaseNote(title, body string) string {
 	if strings.Contains(body, releaseNoteBlock) {
 		block := textBlockBetween(body, releaseNoteBlock)
-		if len(block) != 0 && !strings.Contains(block, commentTag) {
+		ignore := false
+		for _, commentTag := range ignoreReleaseNoteFragments {
+			if strings.Contains(block, commentTag) {
+				ignore = true
+				break
+			}
+		}
+		if !ignore && len(block) != 0 {
 			return block
 		}
 	}
diff --git a/pkg/github/labels_test.go b/pkg/github/labels_test.go
index 4a66119..c6db94d 100644
--- a/pkg/github/labels_test.go
+++ b/pkg/github/labels_test.go
@@ -79,6 +79,14 @@ func Test_getReleaseNote(t *testing.T) {
 			},
 			want: "Pineapple pizza",
 		},
+		{
+			name: "Ignore k8s style empty release note",
+			args: args{
+				title: "Ketchup on pizza",
+				body:  "```release-note\r\nNONE\n",
+			},
+			want: "Ketchup on pizza",
+		},
 	}
 	for _, tt := range tests {
 		t.Run(tt.name, func(t *testing.T) {