Which entry carries the release version?

The first recomputed release PR went red on validate-counts. Not a bug in the release, a gate that had not met the channel split yet: it hard-coded plugins[0] as "the" version, and plugins[0] is now the pinned stable channel, 9.8.0 on purpose.

package.json                 10.0.0-alpha
plugins[0]  ork              9.8.0   pinned to v9.8.0   ✗ drift! (false)
plugins[1]  ork-alpha        10.0.0-alpha  tracks main  ✓ the real carrier

The fix: address by meaning, not by position

The entry that must match the release is the one whose ref tracks main. Selected by that property, with the old behaviour as fallback for a single-entry layout:

jq '[.plugins[] | select(.source.ref? == "main")][0].version
     // .plugins[0].version'

The pinned entry's own version/tag agreement is guarded separately by tests/schemas/test-alpha-channel.sh (8 assertions), so nothing is lost by excluding it here.

Verified both directions

main (9.8.0 everywhere)              exit 0  PASSED
release branch (10.0.0-alpha)        exit 0  PASSED
  ✓ marketplace.json (tracking entry): 10.0.0-alpha

Run against the actual release branch in a worktree, with this fix copied in, before any push. The other two red checks on the release PR were stale runs against a superseded bot commit; the schema suite passes at its current head.