Versioning Policy

Starting from XGBoost 1.0.0, each XGBoost release will be versioned as [MAJOR].[FEATURE].[MAINTENANCE]

• MAJOR: We guarantee the API compatibility across releases with the same major version number. We expect to have a 1+ years development period for a new MAJOR release version.

• FEATURE: We ship new features, improvements and bug fixes through feature releases. The cycle length of a feature is decided by the size of feature roadmap. The roadmap is decided right after the previous release.

• MAINTENANCE: Maintenance version only contains bug fixes. This type of release only occurs when we found significant correctness and/or performance bugs and barrier for users to upgrade to a new version of XGBoost smoothly.

Making a Release

1. Create an issue for the release, noting the estimated date and expected features or major fixes, pin that issue.

2. Create a release branch if this is a major release. Bump release version. There’s a helper scriptops/script/change_version.py.

3. Commit the change, create a PR on GitHub on release branch. Port the bumped version to default branch, optionally with the postfixSNAPSHOT.

4. Create a tag on release branch, either on GitHub or locally.

5. Make a release on GitHub tag page, which might be done with previous step if the tag is created on GitHub.

6. Submit pip, R-universe, CRAN, and Maven packages.

   There are helper scripts for automating the process inxgboost/dev/.

   • The pip package is maintained byHyunsu Cho andJiaming Yuan.

   • The CRAN package and the R-universe packages are maintained byJiaming Yuan.

   • The Maven package is maintained byNan Zhu andHyunsu Cho.

R Universe Packages

Since XGBoost 3.0.0, we host the R package onR-Universe. To make a new release, change thepackages.json indmlc.r-universe.devwith a new release branch.

R CRAN Package

Before submitting a release, one should test the package onR-hub andwin-builder first. Please note that the R-hub Windows instance doesn’t have the exact same environment as the one hosted on win-builder.

According to theCRAN policy:

If running a package uses multiple threads/cores it must never use more than two simultaneously: the check farm is a shared resource and will typically be running many checks simultaneously.

We need to check the number of CPUs used in examples. Export_R_CHECK_EXAMPLE_TIMING_CPU_TO_ELAPSED_THRESHOLD_=2.5 before runningRCMDcheck--as-cran[1] and make sure the machine you are using has enough CPU cores to reveal any potential policy violation.

Read The Docs

We might need to manually activate the new release branch forread the docs and set it as the default branch in the console[2]. Please check the document build and make sure the correct branch isactivated and selected after making a new release.

References

[1]https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2022q4/008610.html

[2]https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org/issues/12073