What would be the versioning style during Alpha period #1154

Activity

1. RafaelGSS

   added

   Release-agenda

   on Apr 30, 2026
2. aduh95 commented on Apr 30, 2026

   

   aduh95

   on Apr 30, 2026

   Contributor

   More actions

   I've suggested in #1142 (comment) 27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0, so it's still possible to know the semverness of a given release compared to another one.
3. trivikr commented on May 5, 2026

   

   trivikr

   on May 5, 2026

   Member

   More actions

   The official suggested regular expression at semver is

   ^(?P<major>0|[1-9]\d*)\.(?P<minor>0|[1-9]\d*)\.(?P<patch>0|[1-9]\d*)(?:-(?P<prerelease>(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*)(?:\.(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*))*))?(?:\+(?P<buildmetadata>[0-9a-zA-Z-]+(?:\.[0-9a-zA-Z-]+)*))?$
   

   Playground: https://regex101.com/r/Ly7O1x/3/

   While both v27.0.0-alpha-0 and 27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0 fit the regular expression, as a user of Node.js and userland modules I expect it to be v27.0.0-alpha.0.

   Examples of other software following v<major>.<minor>.<patch>-<prerelease>.<num>:

   • Current Node.js rc versions: https://nodejs.org/download/rc/
   • chalk (403M weekly downloads) https://www.npmjs.com/package/chalk?activeTab=versions
   • ms (422M weekly downloads) https://www.npmjs.com/package/ms?activeTab=versions
   • typescript (182M weekly downloads) https://www.npmjs.com/package/typescript?activeTab=versions
   • lodash (143M weekly downloads) https://www.npmjs.com/package/lodash?activeTab=versions
   • react (141M weekly downloads) https://www.npmjs.com/package/react?activeTab=versions

   Alternatives that I came across while checking versions in JS ecosystem

   • 27.0.0-0: This would be short to read, but can get confused with stable version. We should keep prerelease tag.
   • 27.0.0-alpha.YYYYMMDD: TypeScript follows this for their dev prerelease versions. I personally like this because it's a good mix of semver with calendar versioning. But it's too long to read.

   👍React with 👍1Reacted by Mike McCready
4. MikeMcC399 commented on Aug 9, 2026

   

   MikeMcC399

   on Aug 9, 2026

   More actions

   Please finalize this decision.

   nodejs/node#63135 is still open.

   I'm not too concerned with the final format, so long as it's SemVer compliant, however in order to start preparing in docker-node, it would be good to be using test data that corresponds to whatever is planned.

   There are other questions to be answered, such as possible changes to https://nodejs.org/dist/ and conventions on the use of floating tags. See also #1171.
5. aduh95 commented on Aug 11, 2026

   

   aduh95

   on Aug 11, 2026

   Last edited by aduh95

   Contributor

   More actions

   With nodejs/node#63135 ready to land landed, it's safe to say that 27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0 will be the first Alpha release of Node.js 27

   👍React with 👍2Reacted by Mike McCready and Marco Ippolito
6. nodejs-github-bot

   added a commit that references this issue on Aug 11, 2026

   meta: add support for alpha prerelease tag

   ...

   eff293f
7. aduh95

   added a commit that references this issue on Aug 13, 2026

   meta: add support for alpha prerelease tag

   ...

   d86c7e8
8. MikeMcC399 commented on Aug 13, 2026

   

   MikeMcC399

   on Aug 13, 2026

   More actions

   With nodejs/node#63135 ready to land landed, it's safe to say that 27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0 will be the first Alpha release of Node.js 27

   It seems that this question has been answered then and the issue could be closed.
9. aduh95

   closed this as completedon Aug 13, 2026
10. aduh95

    added a commit that references this issue on Aug 25, 2026

    meta: add support for alpha prerelease tag

    ...

    4abd1c8