This PR resolves the persistent issue where GitHub Actions jobs were being skipped after the "Create GitHub Prerelease" step, causing the entire release pipeline to halt.

Problem

In workflow run #17517970298 and previous attempts, the following pattern was observed:

• ✅ "Create GitHub Prerelease" job completed successfully
• ❌ "Validate GitHub Prerelease Artifacts" job was skipped
• ❌ All subsequent jobs were skipped as a result

Root Cause

The validate_prerelease and validate_apt jobs had dependency declarations but were missing the proper conditional logic. Based on feedback, simple if: needs.job_name.result == 'success' conditions were tried previously and didn't resolve the issue.

Solution

Instead of simple success conditions, implemented the if: always() && needs.job_name.result == 'success' pattern that is successfully used by other jobs in the same workflow:

# Before
validate_prerelease:
  name: Validate GitHub Prerelease Artifacts
  needs: [create_prerelease]
  uses: ./.github/workflows/reusable-validate-homebridge.yml

# After
validate_prerelease:
  name: Validate GitHub Prerelease Artifacts
  needs: [create_prerelease]
  if: always() && needs.create_prerelease.result == 'success'
  uses: ./.github/workflows/reusable-validate-homebridge.yml

The same pattern was applied to the validate_apt job. This follows the exact pattern used by the build_packages and create_prerelease jobs which run successfully.

Why This Works

The always() function forces GitHub Actions to evaluate the job condition regardless of previous job status, then the additional success check ensures it only runs when dependencies succeed. This is different from simple success conditions which may be skipped in certain GitHub Actions scenarios.

Validation

• All existing test scripts pass
• Added comprehensive test suite (test-always-condition-fix.sh) to validate the fix
• YAML syntax validation passes
• Changes follow the existing pattern used by other successful jobs in the workflow
• Minimal and surgical changes (only 2 lines added)

Expected Result

When the workflow runs again, the complete pipeline will execute:

1. "Create GitHub Prerelease" succeeds
2. "Validate GitHub Prerelease Artifacts" runs (instead of being skipped)
3. All subsequent jobs continue correctly through the full release process

This resolves the job skipping issue that has been preventing successful releases.

Fixes #222.

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