Automate RC8 release journeys

docs/RC_ROADMAP_BELGIUM_NORTH_SEA.md

@@ -151,8 +151,8 @@ editions and licences must still pass source-specific probes before activation.
 | RC-5 | complete | deployment, secrets, configuration, fresh install and rollback |
 | RC-6 | complete | complete CI, dependency and supply-chain gates |
 | RC-7 | complete | critical API envelope typing and contract validation |
-| RC-8 | in progress | frontend and browser E2E release journeys |
-| RC-9 | pending | loading, accessibility and performance hardening |
+| RC-8 | complete | frontend and browser E2E release journeys |
+| RC-9 | in progress | loading, accessibility and performance hardening |
 | RC-10 | pending | retention, cleanup and national data operations |
 | RC-11 | pending | final package, upgrade proof, release tag and handoff |
 
@@ -428,6 +428,16 @@ offline migration SQL generation.
 
 ## RC-8 - Release journey automation
 
+**State: complete.** Four Vitest suites protect selection, coverage, temporal
+comparison and bootstrap behavior with 12 tests. The Playwright release runner
+provisions seven deterministic land, cross-region, coastal and maritime
+golden areas in the national workbench through canonical APIs and executes the complete browser/API
+journey against the live PostGIS runtime. Evidence includes governed Mol
+metrics and provenance, compatible forest history, no-data, partial coverage,
+unsupported maritime metrics, simulated provider failure, persistent export,
+real local Ollama context and an explicit configured-YOLO run. The green run
+contains no unexpected browser-console or failed-request events.
+
 ### Work
 
 - add frontend unit tests for selection, coverage, loading and temporal guards;
@@ -449,6 +459,22 @@ offline migration SQL generation.
 - no workflow depends only on source-text assertion tests;
 - console and failed-request audits are clean.
 
+### Reproduction
+
+```bash
+npm --prefix frontend run test:unit
+bash scripts/run_rc8_release_journeys.sh \
+  http://192.168.10.150:1202 \
+  artifacts/rc8-release-journeys \
+  artifacts/rc8-golden-areas.json
+```
+
+The second command is intentionally live and mutating. It creates only missing
+golden Areas, copies the official Mol/Kempen geometry into the national
+workbench with source identifiers, uses the existing explicit demo-fixture flow for AI validation
+and writes screenshots plus `manifest.json` under the ignored `artifacts/`
+directory.
+
 ## RC-9 - UX, accessibility and performance
 
 ### Work