# Kubernetes API and Release Versioning

Reference: [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org)

Legend:

* **Kube X.Y.Z** refers to the version (git tag) of Kubernetes that is released.
This versions all components: apiserver, kubelet, kubectl, etc.  (**X** is the
major version, **Y** is the minor version, and **Z** is the patch version.)
* **API vX[betaY]** refers to the version of the HTTP API.

## Release versioning

### Minor version scheme and timeline

* Kube X.Y.0-alpha.W, W > 0 (Branch: master)
  * Alpha releases are released roughly every two weeks directly from the master
branch.
  * No cherrypick releases. If there is a critical bugfix, a new release from
master can be created ahead of schedule.
* Kube X.Y.Z-beta.W (Branch: release-X.Y)
  * When master is feature-complete for Kube X.Y, we will cut the release-X.Y
branch 2 weeks prior to the desired X.Y.0 date and cherrypick only PRs essential
to X.Y.
  * This cut will be marked as X.Y.0-beta.0, and master will be revved to X.Y+1.0-alpha.0.
  * If we're not satisfied with X.Y.0-beta.0, we'll release other beta releases,
(X.Y.0-beta.W | W > 0) as necessary.
* Kube X.Y.0 (Branch: release-X.Y)
  * Final release, cut from the release-X.Y branch cut two weeks prior.
  * X.Y.1-beta.0 will be tagged at the same commit on the same branch.
  * X.Y.0 occur 3 to 4 months after X.(Y-1).0.
* Kube X.Y.Z, Z > 0 (Branch: release-X.Y)
  * [Patch releases](#patch-releases) are released as we cherrypick commits into
the release-X.Y branch, (which is at X.Y.Z-beta.W,) as needed.
  * X.Y.Z is cut straight from the release-X.Y branch, and X.Y.Z+1-beta.0 is
tagged on the followup commit that updates pkg/version/base.go with the beta
version.
* Kube X.Y.Z, Z > 0 (Branch: release-X.Y.Z)
  * These are special and different in that the X.Y.Z tag is branched to isolate
the emergency/critical fix from all other changes that have landed on the
release branch since the previous tag
  * Cut release-X.Y.Z branch to hold the isolated patch release
  * Tag release-X.Y.Z branch + fixes with X.Y.(Z+1)
  * Branched [patch releases](#patch-releases) are rarely needed but used for
emergency/critical fixes to the latest release
  * See [#19849](https://issues.k8s.io/19849) tracking the work that is needed
for this kind of release to be possible.

### Major version timeline

There is no mandated timeline for major versions. They only occur when we need
to start the clock on deprecating features. A given major version should be the
latest major version for at least one year from its original release date.

### CI and dev version scheme

* Continuous integration versions also exist, and are versioned off of alpha and
beta releases. X.Y.Z-alpha.W.C+aaaa is C commits after X.Y.Z-alpha.W, with an
additional +aaaa build suffix added; X.Y.Z-beta.W.C+bbbb is C commits after
X.Y.Z-beta.W, with an additional +bbbb build suffix added. Furthermore, builds
that are built off of a dirty build tree, (during development, with things in
the tree that are not checked it,) it will be appended with -dirty.

### Supported releases and component skew

We expect users to stay reasonably up-to-date with the versions of Kubernetes
they use in production, but understand that it may take time to upgrade,
especially for production-critical components.

We expect users to be running approximately the latest patch release of a given
minor release; we often include critical bug fixes in
[patch releases](#patch-release), and so encourage users to upgrade as soon as
possible.

Different components are expected to be compatible across different amounts of
skew, all relative to the master version.  Nodes may lag masters components by
up to two minor versions but should be at a version no newer than the master; a
client should be skewed no more than one minor version from the master, but may
lead the master by up to one minor version.  For example, a v1.3 master should
work with v1.1, v1.2, and v1.3 nodes, and should work with v1.2, v1.3, and v1.4
clients.

Furthermore, we expect to "support" three minor releases at a time.  "Support"
means we expect users to be running that version in production, though we may
not port fixes back before the latest minor version. For example, when v1.3
comes out, v1.0 will no longer be supported: basically, that means that the
reasonable response to the question "my v1.0 cluster isn't working," is, "you
should probably upgrade it, (and probably should have some time ago)". With
minor releases happening approximately every three months, that means a minor
release is supported for approximately nine months.

This policy is in line with
[GKE's supported upgrades policy](https://cloud.google.com/container-engine/docs/clusters/upgrade).

## API versioning

### Release versions as related to API versions

Here is an example major release cycle:

* **Kube 1.0 should have API v1 without v1beta\* API versions**
 * The last version of Kube before 1.0 (e.g. 0.14 or whatever it is) will have
the stable v1 API. This enables you to migrate all your objects off of the beta
API versions of the API and allows us to remove those beta API versions in Kube
1.0 with no effect. There will be tooling to help you detect and migrate any
v1beta\* data versions or calls to v1 before you do the upgrade.
* **Kube 1.x may have API v2beta***
 * The first incarnation of a new (backwards-incompatible) API in HEAD is
 v2beta1. By default this will be unregistered in apiserver, so it can change
 freely. Once it is available by default in apiserver (which may not happen for
several minor releases), it cannot change ever again because we serialize
objects in versioned form, and we always need to be able to deserialize any
objects that are saved in etcd, even between alpha versions. If further changes
to v2beta1 need to be made, v2beta2 is created, and so on, in subsequent 1.x
versions.
* **Kube 1.y (where y is the last version of the 1.x series) must have final
API v2**
 * Before Kube 2.0 is cut, API v2 must be released in 1.x. This enables two
 things: (1) users can upgrade to API v2 when running Kube 1.x and then switch
 over to Kube 2.x transparently, and (2) in the Kube 2.0 release itself we can
 cleanup and remove all API v2beta\* versions because no one should have
 v2beta\* objects left in their database. As mentioned above, tooling will exist
 to make sure there are no calls or references to a given API version anywhere
 inside someone's kube installation before someone upgrades.
 * Kube 2.0 must include the v1 API, but Kube 3.0 must include the v2 API only.
It *may* include the v1 API as well if the burden is not high - this will be
determined on a per-major-version basis.

#### Rationale for API v2 being complete before v2.0's release

It may seem a bit strange to complete the v2 API before v2.0 is released,
but *adding* a v2 API is not a breaking change. *Removing* the v2beta\*
APIs *is* a breaking change, which is what necessitates the major version bump.
There are other ways to do this, but having the major release be the fresh start
of that release's API without the baggage of its beta versions seems most
intuitive out of the available options.

## Patch releases

Patch releases are intended for critical bug fixes to the latest minor version,
such as addressing security vulnerabilities, fixes to problems affecting a large
number of users, severe problems with no workaround, and blockers for products
based on Kubernetes.

They should not contain miscellaneous feature additions or improvements, and
especially no incompatibilities should be introduced between patch versions of
the same minor version (or even major version).

Dependencies, such as Docker or Etcd, should also not be changed unless
absolutely necessary, and also just to fix critical bugs (so, at most patch
version changes, not new major nor minor versions).

## Upgrades

* Users can upgrade from any Kube 1.x release to any other Kube 1.x release as a
rolling upgrade across their cluster. (Rolling upgrade means being able to
upgrade the master first, then one node at a time. See #4855 for details.)
  * However, we do not recommend upgrading more than two minor releases at a
time (see [Supported releases](#supported-releases)), and do not recommend
running non-latest patch releases of a given minor release.
* No hard breaking changes over version boundaries.
  * For example, if a user is at Kube 1.x, we may require them to upgrade to
Kube 1.x+y before upgrading to Kube 2.x. In others words, an upgrade across
major versions (e.g. Kube 1.x to Kube 2.x) should effectively be a no-op and as
graceful as an upgrade from Kube 1.x to Kube 1.x+1. But you can require someone
to go from 1.x to 1.x+y before they go to 2.x.

There is a separate question of how to track the capabilities of a kubelet to
facilitate rolling upgrades. That is not addressed here.


<!-- BEGIN MUNGE: GENERATED_ANALYTICS -->
[![Analytics](https://kubernetes-site.appspot.com/UA-36037335-10/GitHub/docs/design/versioning.md?pixel)]()
<!-- END MUNGE: GENERATED_ANALYTICS -->
