---
title: "Versioning Policy"
description: "The Authelia Versioning Policy which is important reading for administrators"
date: 2022-12-21T16:46:42+11:00
draft: false
images: []
aliases:
  - /versioning-policy
  - /versioning
---

The __Authelia__ team aims to abide by the [Semantic Versioning 2.0.0](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html) policy. This
means that we use the format `major.minor.patch` for our version numbers, where a change to `major` denotes a breaking
change which will likely require user interaction to upgrade, `minor` which denotes a new feature, and `patch` denotes a
fix.

It is therefore recommended users do not automatically upgrade the `minor` version without reading the patch notes, and
it's critically important users do not upgrade the `major` version without reading the patch notes. You should pin your
version to `4.37` for example to prevent automatic upgrades from negatively affecting you.

## Exceptions

There are exceptions to this versioning policy.

### Breaking Changes

All features which are marked as:

- beta
- experimental

Notable examples:

- OpenID Connect 1.0
- File Filters

The reasoning is as we develop these features there may be mistakes and we may need to make a change that should be
considered breaking. As these features graduate from their status to generally available they will move into our
standard versioning policy from this exception.