Semantic Versioning

Version numbers follow the format Major.Minor.Patch (e.g., 1.14.10 ).

Stable Software (1.0.0+)

Change type Bump Reset Example

Breaking change Major Minor and Patch to 0 1.14.10 -> 2.0.0

New feature or backwards-compatible behavior change Minor Patch to 0 1.14.10 -> 1.15.0

Bug fix or security fix (backwards-compatible) Patch Nothing 1.14.10 -> 1.14.11

Reserve patch releases exclusively for fixes. Lack-of-feature is not a bug — use minor releases for those.

Consumer guarantee: newer releases within the same major version are safe to upgrade to.

Unstable Software (0.x.x)

Software with major version 0 is unstable — no stability commitment yet.

Change type Bump Example

Bug fix or security fix Patch 0.3.2 -> 0.3.3

Everything else (features AND breaking changes) Minor 0.3.2 -> 0.4.0

• Start development at 0.1.0 .

• Release 1.0.0 when ready to commit to stability.

Consumer guarantee: fixes available within the same minor version.

Breaking Changes

Semver communicates breaking changes clearly — but does not make them cheap. For popular software with many downstream consumers, partial upgrades create ecosystem fragmentation.

Guidelines:

• Avoid major version bumps for as long as possible.

• If a major bump is unavoidable, provide a gradual migration path.

• Do not treat semver as a license to make breaking changes.