Release Process and Rules

New in version v2.6.2.

Starting with the version to be released after v2.6.2, the following rules will govern and describe how the Requests core team produces a new release.

Major Releases

A major release will include breaking changes. When it is versioned, it will be versioned as vX.0.0. For example, if the previous release was v10.2.7 the next version will be v11.0.0.

Breaking changes are changes that break backwards compatibility with prior versions. If the project were to change the text attribute on a Response object to a method, that would only happen in a Major release.

Major releases may also include miscellaneous bug fixes and upgrades to vendored packages. The core developers of Requests are committed to providing a good user experience. This means we’re also committed to preserving backwards compatibility as much as possible. Major releases will be infrequent and will need strong justifications before they are considered.

Minor Releases

A minor release will not include breaking changes but may include miscellaneous bug fixes and upgrades to vendored packages. If the previous version of Requests released was v10.2.7 a minor release would be versioned as v10.3.0.

Minor releases will be backwards compatible with releases that have the same major version number. In other words, all versions that would start with v10. should be compatible with each other.

Hotfix Releases

A hotfix release will only include bug fixes that were missed when the project released the previous version. If the previous version of Requests released v10.2.7 the hotfix release would be versioned as v10.2.8.

Hotfixes will not include upgrades to vendored dependences after v2.6.2

Reasoning

In the 2.5 and 2.6 release series, the Requests core team upgraded vendored dependencies and caused a great deal of headaches for both users and the core team. To reduce this pain, we’re forming a concrete set of procedures so expectations will be properly set.