diff --git a/scripts/release.sh b/scripts/release.sh
index 8777da1..cdd012e 100755
--- a/scripts/release.sh
+++ b/scripts/release.sh
@@ -44,6 +44,44 @@ check_prerequisites() {
     fi
 }
 
+# Detect a release that was committed locally but never reached origin — a push
+# or goreleaser failure after commit_and_tag. Left undetected, the next run reads
+# the already-bumped VERSION and offers to bump *on top of it*, skipping a
+# version in the published sequence and leaving local tags on a commit the
+# remote has never seen. See livetemplate#500 for the same bug in core.
+#
+# This runs on every release while the state it catches is rare, so it fails
+# toward "proceed with the normal release": any check it cannot complete returns
+# 1 (not detected) rather than guessing. A false positive would block a healthy
+# release; a false negative only restores the previous behaviour.
+check_unpublished_release() {
+    local branch=$1
+    local version
+    version=$(get_current_version)
+
+    # Only meaningful when HEAD is this version's release commit.
+    [ "$(git log -1 --pretty=%s 2>/dev/null)" = "chore(release): v$version" ] || return 1
+
+    # Deciding this needs an up-to-date origin/$branch. Immediately after a
+    # SUCCESSFUL release the HEAD subject and VERSION look identical to the
+    # unpublished case, so the ancestry test below is the only thing telling
+    # them apart — on a stale ref it would report a published release as
+    # unpublished. A fetch that fails therefore means "cannot tell", not
+    # "unpublished".
+    git fetch --quiet origin "$branch" 2>/dev/null || return 1
+
+    # An ancestor of the remote branch means it is published.
+    if git merge-base --is-ancestor HEAD "refs/remotes/origin/$branch" 2>/dev/null; then
+        return 1
+    fi
+
+    # Not an ancestor — but merge-base also fails when the ref is missing
+    # entirely (a branch never pushed), which is not this bug.
+    git rev-parse -q --verify "refs/remotes/origin/$branch" >/dev/null 2>&1 || return 1
+
+    return 0
+}
+
 # Get current version
 get_current_version() {
     if [ ! -f VERSION ]; then
@@ -398,6 +436,59 @@ main() {
         log_error "Repository is in a detached HEAD state. Please check out a branch before running this script."
         exit 1
     fi
+    # Before pulling: a rebase would move the release commit out from under its
+    # tags, leaving them on an orphaned commit.
+    if check_unpublished_release "$branch"; then
+        local pending t
+        pending=$(get_current_version)
+        echo ""
+        log_error "v$pending is committed locally but has not reached origin/$branch"
+        echo ""
+        echo "A previous release committed and tagged v$pending, then failed before"
+        echo "publishing it. Releasing again from here would bump on top of v$pending"
+        echo "and skip it in the published sequence."
+        echo ""
+        echo "Finish that release first:"
+        echo ""
+        echo "  git push origin $branch"
+        # Build the tag set this release SHOULD have — the main tag plus one per
+        # nested Go module — mirroring commit_and_tag, then report each one.
+        #
+        # Deriving the expected set matters more than listing what exists.
+        # commit_and_tag creates the main tag and then loops over nested modules,
+        # so a failure partway through that loop leaves a PARTIAL set: main tag
+        # present, a nested one missing. Asking only "did we find any tags?"
+        # would take the push-what's-there path and never mention the missing
+        # one — silently incomplete guidance, which is the same failure this
+        # check exists to prevent, one level down.
+        local expected=("v$pending") subdir gomod
+        while IFS= read -r gomod; do
+            subdir=$(dirname "$gomod")
+            subdir=${subdir#./}
+            [ "$subdir" != "." ] && expected+=("${subdir}/v$pending")
+        done < <(find . -name "go.mod" -not -path "./vendor/*" -not -path "./.git/*" -not -path "./.worktrees/*" | grep -v "^\./go.mod$" | sort)
+
+        local t
+        for t in "${expected[@]}"; do
+            if git rev-parse -q --verify "refs/tags/$t" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+                echo "  git push origin $t"
+            else
+                echo "  git tag -a $t -m \"Release $t\"   # missing — tag step did not complete"
+                echo "  git push origin $t"
+            fi
+        done
+        echo ""
+        echo "Then check whether the GitHub release and binaries exist:"
+        echo ""
+        echo "  gh release view v$pending"
+        echo ""
+        echo "If it reports no release, goreleaser never ran — re-run it from a"
+        echo "clean tree at that tag (see publish_github in this script)."
+        echo ""
+        echo "Once v$pending is published, re-run this script for the next version."
+        exit 1
+    fi
+
     if [ "$dry_run_mode" = true ]; then
         log_info "[dry-run] Would pull latest from origin/$branch"
     else