#Releases & Maturity Levels

This page explains the release process of sherpa°, how it's versioned, and how to handle breaking changes that happen throughout releases.

#🎉 New Releases

Sherpa° typically ships a new release every week. This is not a hard rule as releases might be delayed or postponed due to internal reasons

#Product Maturity Levels

New releases may include products and features at different maturity levels, which describe a product or feature's completeness and what users can expect from them.

There are three levels of maturity: Preview, Early Access, and Generally Avaliable (GA).

#Alpha

A feature or product is in Alpha when:

• We have validated a problem and are considering a solution to it, but we are not certain whether the solution is complete or a perfect fit for the problem
• We want to gather more data and feedback to adjust the solution as necessary, knowing that users are prepared for significant breaking changes
• This feature is not subject to SLA
• Consider it as a preview experience

Generally, we recommend using Alpha features or products in production if you are open for collaboration and can provide valuable feedback to us so we can tailor it better to needs.

#Beta

A feature or product is in Beta when:

• We have validated the feature or product in terms of direction and shape
• Users can count on the feature or product and associated API to be mostly stable unless stated otherwise in the changelogs and documentation
• There are no significant known issues, although minor bugs or incomplete documentation might exist
• We welcome feedback on these to make the solution stable
• This feature meets SLAs but is not subject to SLAs yet
• Consider it as an early access

Beta features are typically avaiable behind a feature flag or require some form of opt-in.

We reccomend using Beta features or products in production with care.

#Generally Available (GA)

If a feature or product is Generally Avalivable (GA):

• The solution has been tested for some time and we recieved enough feedback to consider it stable and ready for production