Branch and Version

1. Branch Name and Version Number

• We use SemVer to specify version numbers;
• We only use two types of branches：
• main branch -> The main branch and integration branch, all prs should be merged into the main branch first;
• release branch -> The release branch, the main purpose of introducing the release branch is to release patch versions on non-latest versions.

2. Which Branch Do We Release from

Due to historical reasons, we only maintained the main branch in the early days, so the correspondence between branches and versions is divided into two cases:

3. Correspondence between Branch Name and Version Number

Start version v0.5.0, we decided to release from a specific release branch. The name rule of the release branch is release-x.y, corresponding to the version vx.y.n, where n is the name of the patch version number. See the following table:

E.g.

• The first version released on the release-0.5 branch is v0.5.0;
• When a bug was found in the v0.5.0 version. The commit(s) corresponding to the bugfix should be merged from the main branch to the release-0.5 branch through cherry-pick, and then continue to release the v0.5.1 version.

4. Release Cycle

Starting with v0.5.0 and until v1.0, we maintain a cadence of one minor release per month. For example, if v0.5.0 is released this month, then the version to be released next month is v0.6.0.

5. How Long Will a Version be Supported

Before the v1.0 release, we only maintained the latest version. For example, after v0.5.0 is released, before v0.6.0 is released, we will merge all bugfixes into release-0.5 branch by cherry-pick, and in release-0.5, the v0.5.n patch version is continuously released. When the v0.6.0 version is released, the release-0.5 branch will no longer be updated.

Starting from the v1.0 version, we will switch to releasing a minor version every three months and maintain a total of three minor versions. That means the maintenance cycle for each minor release is 3 x 3 = 9 months. For example, if v1.0.0 is released in January 2023, then v1.1.0 will be released in April 2023, and v1.2.0 will be released in July 2023. Within 9 months after the release of each minor version, the bugfixes will continue to be merged, and the corresponding patch version will continue to be released.