diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -15,6 +15,131 @@
 
 ---
 
+## [0.17.5] - 2026-08-19
+
+Point release on the 0.17.x line. Two language-surface changes lead: sum-type eliminators unify on
+`match` (scrutinee-first), and the primitive set is tentatively finalized — `strings.lines`/`unlines`
+are removed in favour of `hydra.formatting` term helpers. A symlink-aware filesystem family lands
+across all ten hosts, and Hydra's own build system continues its migration into Hydra.
+
+**Backward-incompatible.** The `cases` -> `match` rename and the `strings.lines`/`unlines` removal
+both change the published kernel surface. Code written against 0.17.4 that uses `Optionals.cases`
+or `strings.lines`/`strings.unlines` must be updated.
+
+### Highlights
+
+- **Sum-type eliminators unify on `match`** ([#615](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/615)):
+  the `cases`/`match` helper pair is flipped to a single scrutinee-first `match` convention across the
+  Haskell, Java, Python, and Scala DSLs, the `optionals.cases` -> `optionals.match` kernel primitive,
+  and the corresponding implementations in TypeScript and all four Lisp dialects.
+- **Primitive set tentatively finalized** ([#417](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/417)):
+  `strings.lines` and `strings.unlines` are removed as primitives; their semantics are preserved as
+  `hydra.formatting.lines`/`unlines` term helpers, with overlay implementations dropped across all ten
+  hosts and callers repointed.
+- **Symlink-aware filesystem primitives** ([#666](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/666)):
+  `status(followLinks)`, `createSymlink`, and `readSymlink` land with native implementations for every
+  host — Haskell, Java, Python, Scala, TypeScript, Clojure, Common Lisp, Scheme, and Emacs Lisp.
+- **Build system promotion continues** ([#416](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/416)):
+  adds `hydra.build.walk` extension-glob helpers (`extensionOf`/`filterByExtension`/`matchesExtension`)
+  and `hydra.build.comparereportlogic`, a set of pure snapshot-compare decision helpers.
+
+### Bug fixes
+
+- **`math.range` was inclusive of both bounds** ([#647](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/647)),
+  silently fabricating an extra element in index arithmetic.
+- **Java coder TCO-`cases` codegen** dropped enclosing-method type parameters from union-variant casts
+  (found via [#666](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/666)).
+- **`ShaclRdf` promoted to a DSL module** ([#652](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/652))
+  so the SHACL pipeline works outside Haskell.
+- **Cold-seed shim portability**: the R22 bootstrap shim used GNU-only `\+` and `\b`, which fail under
+  BSD `sed` on macOS ([#417](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/417)).
+- **Bootstrap Haskell target missing `unix`**: the demo's static `package.yaml` was not updated when
+  `System.Posix.Files` entered the kernel overlay, breaking every `*-to-haskell` bootstrap cell
+  ([#670](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/670)).
+- **Bootstrap comparison scored Scala and TypeScript cells as passing without comparing anything**:
+  `compare_output`'s target switch was missing both languages, so the baseline path was malformed,
+  every file counted as "no baseline found", and a zero-file comparison reported `pass`. A Scala or
+  TypeScript *target* cell could never fail ([#671](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/671)).
+
+### Known issues
+
+- A pre-#630 post-generation text pass rewrites `hydra.lib.<sub>` -> `hydra.overlay.<lang>.lib.<sub>`
+  in generated **doc comments** as well as code, because its quote-prefix guard does not recognize
+  mid-sentence prose references. Affects two kernel doc strings in `src/main`
+  (`hydra.error.system`, `hydra.error.packaging`) plus ~20 generated docstrings in the test tree;
+  cosmetic only, no behavioral impact. Tracked as part of
+  [#633](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/633).
+- Bootstrap comparison diff detail is not persisted to the run directory
+  ([#671](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/671)).
+
+---
+
+## [0.17.4] - 2026-08-09
+
+Point release on the 0.17.x line. Fixes an inference bug that mis-typed generated Java and Python for
+`readFile`, adds the `divide` primitive, and restores `hydra-ext` to the published package set. Release
+validation also surfaced a family of pre-existing cross-host code-generation defects — none of which the
+per-host CI jobs can catch, because only the bootstrap exercises one host generating *another*.
+
+### Highlights
+
+- **Output-only nominal generalization fixed** ([#637](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/637),
+  with [#638](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/638) /
+  [#639](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/639) /
+  [#640](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/640)): a nominal type appearing only in the
+  *output* position of a primitive's signature was generalized to a free type variable instead of resolving
+  as nominal, mis-typing the generated Java and Python for `readFile`. Also widens universe closure and adds
+  a `kernelTypeUniverse` helper, an effect DSL builder, and `effects`/`files`/`text`/`system` lib wrappers.
+- **`divide` primitive** ([#317](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/317)): now present in the
+  published kernel. This also clears the cold-clone dangle, since a cold seed against published 0.17.4
+  resolves `DefMath.divide`.
+- **`hydra-ext` republished** ([#636](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/636)): back in the
+  published set after its absence from 0.17.1–0.17.3, shipping to Hackage and PyPI.
+
+### Bug fixes
+
+- **Overlay-lib redirection skipped for the Haskell target**
+  ([#630](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/630)):
+  the Java, Python, Scheme, Clojure and Common Lisp heads resolved the overlay lib directory using an
+  all-lowercase path and did not lower-case the names they scanned. Haskell's overlay tree is capitalized
+  (`Hydra/Overlay/Haskell/Lib/`), so every `hydra.lib.*` redirect silently failed and the generated Haskell
+  imported `Hydra.Lib.*` instead of `Hydra.Overlay.Haskell.Lib.*`, producing hundreds of type errors. The
+  defect was invisible on case-sensitive filesystems, where the failed directory check falls back to a
+  hard-coded list that happens to be correct. The Python head carried *two* independent copies of this scan;
+  only the one in `generation.py` feeds the Haskell coder.
+- **Lisp-as-host bootstrap** ([#520](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/520),
+  [#630](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/630)): the four Lisp head decode drivers called
+  `from_json` with a stale 4-argument signature, and the Lisp bootstrap-driver coders were not pre-bound with
+  `overlaySubs`.
+- **Python-as-host dropped the `Graph` argument** ([#630](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/630)):
+  `overlaySubs` was not threaded into the Python head's `write_*` wrappers.
+- **Clojure `resolve-coder` and `decimal-to-float32`**
+  ([#630](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/630)): a stray parenthesis closed a `case` early,
+  making an unsupported-default block run unconditionally; and `(float (.doubleValue ...))` threw on
+  `Float.MAX_VALUE`, now saturating via `(.floatValue (bigdec x))`.
+- **Cold-seeder failed on macOS** ([#630](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/630)): the #376
+  cold seeder used a bare `sed -i -e`, which is GNU-only and aborts immediately under BSD `sed`.
+
+### Release engineering
+
+- **Review checkpoint before Maven Central publishes**
+  ([#591](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/591)): `HYDRA_JAVA_PUBLISH_HOLD=1` uploads the
+  aggregated Java deployment as `USER_MANAGED`, so it validates and then holds for review instead of
+  publishing automatically. This mirrors `HYDRA_SCALA_PUBLISH_HOLD` and makes an upload reversible — a held
+  deployment can be dropped, whereas an automatic one cannot be undone.
+
+### Known issues
+
+- **`hydra-ext` is not published to Maven Central**
+  ([#643](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/643)): it does not compile for the Java target,
+  because the visitor-pattern inner interface the Java coder emits collides with the enclosing `Visitor`
+  type in `hydra.cpp.syntax`. Only Java is affected; the Python coder emits sibling classes rather than
+  nested ones. ext ships to Hackage and PyPI at 0.17.4 and is expected to rejoin the Java set once fixed.
+- **TypeScript no longer self-hosts**
+  ([#642](https://github.com/CategoricalData/hydra/issues/642)): the TypeScript host's JSON decoder fails to
+  decode most of the kernel, so `typescript-as-host` code generation is broken. No published artifact is
+  affected — `dist/typescript` is generated by the Haskell host and passes its test suite.
+
 ## [0.17.3] - 2026-08-01
 
 Point release on the 0.17.x line, focused on **release-artifact integrity**. The 0.17.2 release shipped
diff --git a/hydra-jvm.cabal b/hydra-jvm.cabal
--- a/hydra-jvm.cabal
+++ b/hydra-jvm.cabal
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 cabal-version: 1.12
 
--- This file has been generated from package.yaml by hpack version 0.39.1.
+-- This file has been generated from package.yaml by hpack version 0.38.1.
 --
 -- see: https://github.com/sol/hpack
 
 name:           hydra-jvm
-version:        0.17.4
+version:        0.17.5
 synopsis:       Shared JVM support for Hydra's Java, Scala, and Clojure coders
 description:    Hydra is an implementation of the LambdaGraph data model, which takes advantage of an isomorphism between labeled hypergraphs and typed lambda calculus: in Hydra, "graphs are programs, and programs are graphs". Common JVM support for Hydra (shared by hydra-java, hydra-scala, hydra-clojure)
 category:       Data
@@ -34,6 +34,6 @@
       src/main/haskell
   build-depends:
       base >=4.19.0 && <4.22
-    , hydra-kernel ==0.17.4
+    , hydra-kernel ==0.17.5
     , scientific >=0.3.7 && <0.4
   default-language: Haskell2010
