I can easily reproduce the behavior. Pages that were not published when building with <= v0.152.2 are published with >= v0.153.0. This is not a good thing.
With this front matter:
[[cascade]]
[cascade.target]
environment = "pubweb"
[cascade.build]
list = "never"
render = "never"
publishResources = false
And this command:
hugo -e pubweb
| cascade from section page | cascade from regular page | |
|---|---|---|
| v0.152.2 | section page not published, descendants not published | regular page not published |
| v0.153.0 | section page not published, descendants not published | regular page published |
See https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/issues/14627.
Fixed in v0.158.0, which I suspect will be released within the next week.