# From Discourse 3.2: adding -dev suffix to beta versions under active development

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/from-discourse-3-2-adding-dev-suffix-to-beta-versions-under-active-development/273490
**Category:** Announcements
**Created:** [August 1, 2023, 2:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/from-discourse-3-2-adding-dev-suffix-to-beta-versions-under-active-development/273490 "2023-08-01T14:15:36Z")
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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 2:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/from-discourse-3-2-adding-dev-suffix-to-beta-versions-under-active-development/273490/1 "2023-08-01T14:15:37Z")

</div>

On tests-passed, starting with 3.2.0.beta1-dev, Discourse core version numbers will include a `-dev` suffix to indicate that they’re not the final ‘release’ versions of a beta. This suffix doesn’t appear in the UI, so this is a technicality which will have no impact on the vast majority of people.

For the technical details, see below:

* * *

In the beta series for Discourse 3.1 and below, our versioning strategy was to ‘release’ a beta, and then leave the version number in tests-passed exactly the same until the next beta release. This came with a few problems

1. When trying to specify a version, a version like `3.1.0.beta2` could refer to hundreds of possible points in time. This is particularly problematic when trying to precisely define compatibility [via .discourse-compatibility files](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pinning-plugin-and-theme-versions-for-older-discourse-installs-discourse-compatibility/272665)

2. After a major version, we had to immediately ‘release’ beta1 of the next version in order to continue development on tests-passed. This is why we had [redundant beta1 releases](https://meta.discourse.org/t/3-1-0-beta1-the-beginning-of-discourse-telstar/251370)

To improve the situation, we will now be appending `-dev` to the version number during development of a beta release. So for example, we’re starting the 3.2 development cycle with `3.2.0.beta1-dev`. When that’s ready to be released, it will be stamped as `3.2.0.beta1`, and then we’ll followup immediately with another commit to start development of `3.2.0.beta2-dev`.

Going forward, we intend ‘major releases’ to look something like this:

```mermaid
    %%{init: { 'logLevel': 'debug', 'gitGraph': {'showBranches': true, 'showCommitLabel':true,'mainBranchOrder': 2}} }%%
    gitGraph
       branch stable order: 1
       commit tag: "v3.1.8"
       checkout main
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta17" tag: "v3.2.0.beta17" type: HIGHLIGHT
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta18-dev"
       commit
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta18" tag: "v3.2.0.beta18" type: HIGHLIGHT
       checkout stable
       merge main id: "merge"
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0" type: HIGHLIGHT tag: "v3.2.0"
       checkout main
       commit id: "bump to v3.3.0.beta1-dev"

```

‘minor releases’ will look something like

```mermaid
    %%{init: { 'logLevel': 'debug', 'gitGraph': {'showBranches': true, 'showCommitLabel':true,'mainBranchOrder': 2}} }%%
    gitGraph
       branch stable order: 1
       commit tag: "v3.1.1"
       checkout main
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta2-dev"
       commit id: "... development of beta2 ..."
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta2" tag: "v3.2.0.beta2" type: HIGHLIGHT
       checkout stable
       commit id: "backports"
       commit id: "bump to v3.1.2" type: HIGHLIGHT tag: "v3.1.2"
       checkout main
       commit id: "bump to v3.2.0.beta3-dev"

```

(`main` and `tests-passed` can be considered equivalent in these diagrams)

These processes have been codified into some rake tasks which can be found [in version\_bump.rake](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/lib/tasks/version_bump.rake).

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