[chore] validate version format to prepare-release workflow (#9409)

**Description:** <Describe what has changed.>
enhance the "Automation - Prepare Release" GitHub Actions workflow by
adding version format validation. The workflow now includes a new job,
"validate-version," which checks whether the provided version inputs
match the expected schema

**Link to tracking Issue:** <Issue number if applicable> #7627

---------

Co-authored-by: Tyler Helmuth <12352919+TylerHelmuth@users.noreply.github.com>

.github/workflows/prepare-release.yml

@@ -19,8 +19,38 @@ on:
         required: true
         description: Current version (beta, like 0.69.1). Don't include `v`.
 jobs:
+  #validate-version format
+  validate-versions:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+
+    steps:
+     - name: Validate version format
+      run: |
+        validate_beta_version() {
+          local regex_pattern_beta='^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$'
+          if [[ ! "$1" =~ $regex_pattern_beta ]]; then
+            echo "Invalid $2 version format. For beta, it can be 0.1.0 or higher"
+            exit 1
+          fi
+        }
+
+        validate_stable_version() {
+          local regex_pattern_stable='^[1-9][0-9]*\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$'
+          if [[ ! "$1" =~ $regex_pattern_stable ]]; then
+            echo "Invalid stable version format for $2. Major version must be greater than 1."
+            exit 1
+          fi
+        }
+
+        validate_beta_version "${{ inputs.candidate-beta }}" "candidate-beta"
+        validate_beta_version "${{ inputs.current-beta }}" "current-beta"
+        validate_stable_version "${{ inputs.candidate-stable }}" "candidate-stable"
+        validate_stable_version "${{ inputs.current-stable }}" "current-stable"
+      shell: bash
   # Releasing opentelemetry-collector
   prepare-release:
+    needs: 
+      - validate-version
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@b4ffde65f46336ab88eb53be808477a3936bae11 # v4.1.1