Understanding Discourse release channels

[Discourse]

This guide explains the different types of Discourse releases and how different channels are used for updates.

Required user level: All users

Release channels

Discourse has four primary release channels, each serving a different purpose: main, tests-passed, beta, and stable.

The default channel used when installing a production version of Discourse is tests-passed.

The naming conventions used by Discourse differ a bit from other software companies:

main

On GitHub: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/main

This channel represents the latest development version of Discourse. It contains the most recent features and improvements but may not be thoroughly tested and can be unstable, so it is not recommended for production environments. Developers and early adopters typically use this channel.

tests-passed

On GitHub: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/tests-passed

This channel includes features and improvements from the main channel that have undergone a certain level of testing. It has the best balance between stability and access to the latest improvements. We commit new changes almost daily, and they are available in this channel.

beta

On GitHub: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/beta

We use beta as a “milestone” to push out a collection of commits we want more sites to be running and test. We also release a beta if we have an important security fix we want sites to receive.

A beta release is considered a minor version bump.

When a beta version is release, all sites running on tests-passed or beta receive the “new update available” email.

stable

On GitHub: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/stable

The stable channel is not necessarily more “stable” than tests-passed. It’s more about the idea that the bugs are known, and it serves as a checkpoint for a specific set of features and improvements. With tests-passed, there may be new bugs introduced, then fixed a few commits later.

Last edited by @hugh 2024-07-30T10:13:36Z

Last checked by @hugh 2024-07-30T10:13:40Z

Check document

Perform check on document:

[supermathie (Michael Brown)]

@Discourse

We also release a beta if we have an important security fix we want sites to receive.

We don’t mention security fixes for the stable branch! We probably should, since we also backport security fixes to stable.

(cc: @hugh)

[Moin]

They are mentioned in

@Discourse

Every 4-6 months we release a new stable build. Afterwards, this branch only receives updates for security fixes;

I think the information in the two topics is similar. Perhaps they should be combined.