diff --git a/docs/contributing/release.md b/docs/contributing/release.md
index a25eb21..acdc2a9 100644
--- a/docs/contributing/release.md
+++ b/docs/contributing/release.md
@@ -137,8 +137,10 @@ gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long
 
 ## 3. Build, verify, tag, upload and call the vote — `release.sh`
 
-**On Linux, from a pristine clone of the release commit.** Preflight aborts unless `uname -s` is
-`Linux`, and there is no override flag.
+**From a pristine clone of the release commit.** Linux and macOS both work — the build was
+verified end to end on each. A pristine clone matters for a different reason: preflight refuses to
+run against a dirty tree, and `release-src` archives the working *tree*, so any untracked file
+sitting in the checkout would otherwise be shipped inside the source release.
 
 ```shell
 git clone git@github.com:apache/skywalking-helm && cd skywalking-helm
@@ -168,7 +170,6 @@ irreversible step comes last, and a failure leaves nothing on the remote to clea
 
 Preflight refuses to start when:
 
-- the host is not Linux;
 - any of `helm`, `gpg`, `shasum`, `svn`, `git`, `make`, `tar`, `awk` is missing. All of them are
   reported in one message — finding them one at a time costs one failed run per package;
 - `helm` is older than 3.8. The chart ships only as an OCI artifact, and `helm push` to an `oci://`
@@ -571,7 +572,8 @@ applied and `-f` swallowed the stray `rm` operands, and the target did what it r
 macOS — stops option parsing at the first operand, so `-r` never took effect: it failed with
 `rm: bin/: is a directory`, left `bin/` and `chart/skywalking/charts/` behind, and exited `1`, which
 aborted `make clean`, `make release-src` and `make release`. The recipe is one `rm -rf` again and
-survives BSD `rm`; the Linux requirement now lives in `release.sh`'s preflight, not in this recipe.
+survives BSD `rm`. `release.sh` carried a Linux-only guard for as long as that recipe was broken;
+with the recipe fixed the guard was obsolete, and it has been removed.
 If you touch it, keep it a single `rm -rf` and re-read the whole thing rather than one line.
 
 Because `clean` wipes `charts/` and `Chart.lock`, the next `package` re-resolves dependencies from
diff --git a/tools/releasing/release.sh b/tools/releasing/release.sh
index 51c8ef0..e79b07c 100755
--- a/tools/releasing/release.sh
+++ b/tools/releasing/release.sh
@@ -43,16 +43,25 @@ log()  { echo "  $*"; }
 step() { echo; echo "=== $* ==="; }
 die()  { echo "ERROR: $*" >&2; exit 1; }
 
+# upload_to_svn stages the signed artifacts in a temp directory. The cleanup is registered here,
+# at script scope, over a script-scope variable: an EXIT trap runs after the function has already
+# returned, so it cannot see a `local`, and under `set -u` the unbound name would make the trap
+# fail and take the script's exit status with it.
+WORKDIR=""
+cleanup() { [[ -n "${WORKDIR}" ]] && rm -rf "${WORKDIR}"; return 0; }
+trap cleanup EXIT
+
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 preflight() {
   step "Preflight"
 
-  # make clean is a prerequisite of make release, and its recipe is a single
-  # backslash-continued rm whose later -rf tokens sit mid-argument-list. GNU rm
-  # permutes those; BSD rm does not. So on macOS it exits 2 and leaves
-  # chart/skywalking/charts/ behind, and the release is built from a dirty tree.
-  [[ "$(uname -s)" == "Linux" ]] || die "build the release on Linux -- 'make clean' does not work on macOS (BSD rm), see docs/contributing/release.md"
+  # No OS check. There used to be one: `make clean` was a backslash-continued rm
+  # whose later -rf tokens sat mid-argument-list, which GNU rm permutes and BSD rm
+  # does not, so on macOS it exited 2 and left chart/skywalking/charts/ behind.
+  # That recipe is now a single rm -rf over one operand list, which both accept,
+  # and the whole path -- clean, release-src, package, gpg sign, shasum, and the
+  # verify checks below -- has been run through to completion on macOS.
 
   # Report every missing tool at once. Dying on the first means one failed run
   # per package, and this check exists precisely to spend zero of them.
@@ -102,14 +111,21 @@ ${strays}"
   TAG="v${VERSION}"
   log "version ${VERSION} (from chart/skywalking/Chart.yaml)"
 
-  git rev-parse "${TAG}" >/dev/null 2>&1 && die "tag ${TAG} already exists -- bump Chart.yaml or delete the tag"
+  # `if`, not `X && die`. An && list that fails on its left side returns non-zero, and when it is
+  # the last statement in a function that becomes the function's return value -- which `set -e`
+  # then treats as a failed call, killing the run with no message. `if` returns 0 when the
+  # condition is false, which is the normal path here.
+  if git rev-parse "${TAG}" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+    die "tag ${TAG} already exists -- bump Chart.yaml or delete the tag"
+  fi
 
   # A re-run after a partial upload would mkdir a local ${VERSION} over a path that already exists
   # in svn, and only find out at commit time -- after the build, the signing and the tag push.
   # Safe to read a non-zero exit as "not there" only because the svn check above already
   # established that the repository is reachable and the credentials work.
-  svn ls "${SVN_DEV_URL}/helm/${VERSION}" >/dev/null 2>&1 \
-    && die "${SVN_DEV_URL}/helm/${VERSION} already exists -- delete it, or bump the version"
+  if svn ls "${SVN_DEV_URL}/helm/${VERSION}" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+    die "${SVN_DEV_URL}/helm/${VERSION} already exists -- delete it, or bump the version"
+  fi
 
 }
 
@@ -167,11 +183,8 @@ upload_to_svn() {
   step "Upload to ${SVN_DEV_URL}/helm/${VERSION}"
   cd "${PROJECT_DIR}"
 
-  # EXIT, not RETURN: a RETURN trap does not fire when `set -e` kills the shell part-way through
-  # the function, which would leave a temp directory holding a copy of the signed artifacts.
-  local workdir
-  workdir=$(mktemp -d)
-  trap 'rm -rf "${workdir}"' EXIT
+  WORKDIR=$(mktemp -d)
+  local workdir="${WORKDIR}"
 
   # Sparse checkout: a full checkout of dist/dev/skywalking pulls every
   # sub-project's staging area, which is gigabytes.