diff --git a/.github/workflows/promote.yml b/.github/workflows/promote.yml
index 37e7e3d9d6..0675778f7a 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/promote.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/promote.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,46 @@
-# promote nightly to stable
+# Create a PR that promotes the current main pre-release to the next stable release
 #
-# runs the various git commands to update the version
-# should be followed up by a stable release
+# IE if the current master version is 0.4.0-rc.7, this will create a PR to promote it to 0.4.0
+#
+# - update the version in the Cargo.toml to v0.4.0
+# - generate a v0.4 branch
+# - push the branch to the repository
+# - then bump 0.4.0-rc.1 to 0.5.0-rc.0
+#
+# This means main will never be a "stable" release, and we can always merge breaking changes to main
+# and backport them to the latest stable release
+#
+# This is configured to be ran manually, but could honestly just be a release workflow
+
+on:
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+permissions:
+  actions: write
+
+jobs:
+  promote:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - name: Publish the next pre-release
+        run: |
+          git config --global user.email "github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
+          git config --global user.name "github-actions[bot]"
+
+          # go from eg 0.4.0-rc.7 to 0.4.0, committing the change
+          cargo workspaces version -y minor
+
+          # create a new branch for the release
+          RELEASE_BRANCH=$(cargo metadata --no-deps --format-version 1 | jq -r '.packages[0].version')
+          RELEASE_BRANCH=v$(echo $RELEASE_BRANCH | sed 's/\.[0-9]*$//')
+          git branch $RELEASE_BRANCH
+
+          # go from 0.4.0 to 0.5.0-rc.0
+          cargo workspaces version -y preminor --pre-id rc
+
+          # push the new branch to the repository
+          git push origin $RELEASE_BRANCH
+
+          # push the new version to the repository
+          git push origin main
diff --git a/.github/workflows/publish.yml b/.github/workflows/publish.yml
index 601be09b97..1cd8b1ae83 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/publish.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/publish.yml
@@ -21,24 +21,22 @@ on:
         type: choice
         description: "Branch to publish"
         required: true
-        description: Choose the branch to publish. If the branch is main, it will publish a patch prerelease.
-
+        description: Choose the branch to publish.
         options:
           - main
-          - v0.4.x
-          - v0.5.x
-          - v0.6.x
-          # todo: more stable releases as time goes on
+          - v0.4
+          - v0.5
+          - v0.6
 
 env:
-  # make sure we have the right semver.
+  # make sure we have the right version
   # main is always a prepatch until we hit 1.0, and then this script needs to be updated
   # note that we need to promote the prepatch to a minor bump when we actually do a release
   # this means the version in git will always be one minor bump ahead of the actual release - basically meaning once
   # we release a version, it's fair game to merge breaking changes to main since all semver-compatible changes will be
   # backported automatically
-  SEMVER: ${{ github.event.inputs.channel == 'main' && 'prepatch' || 'patch' }}
-  PRERELEASE_TAG: ${{ github.event.inputs.channel == 'main' && '-prerelease' || '' }}
+  SEMVER: ${{ github.event.inputs.channel == 'main' && 'prerelease' || 'patch' }}
+  PRERELEASE_TAG: ${{ github.event.inputs.channel == 'main' && '-pre' || '' }}
 
 jobs:
   # First, run checks (clippy, tests, etc) and then publish the crates to crates.io
@@ -77,7 +75,7 @@ jobs:
         run: |
           git config --global user.email "github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
           git config --global user.name "github-actions[bot]"
-          cargo workspaces version -y ${{ env.SEMVER }} --no-git-commit
+          cargo workspaces version -y ${{ env.SEMVER }} --pre-id rc --no-git-commit
 
           # todo: actually just publish!
           # cargo workspaces publish -y ${{ github.event.inputs.semver }}