Upgrading to a New Release

The CiviForm core team distributes new versions of the system once per week on Tuesdays. We strongly recommend deployments stay up to date with the latest version to benefit from security patches, bug fixes, and new features.

Each release is published using GitHub releases with a corresponding server Docker image uploaded to civiform/civiform on Docker Hub and tagged with the release number.

Be sure to review the release notes on GitHub for each new release before deploying it.

Release notes include:

  • Description of fixed bugs and security vulnerabilities

  • Description of new features

  • Database schema changes

  • Other stateful changes (such as stored file key name schema)

  • API version changes and deprecation notices

  • New configuration values

  • Infrastructure changes

  • Dependency changes (for the server only) including new, removed, and version updates

New releases are also announced on civiform-announce@googlegroups.com

Version numbers

Version numbers take the form v<major>.<minor>.<patch>, similar to semver. Since CiviForm is an application rather than a library or API, the semantics of each version level differ from semver and are oriented toward communicating risk level to technical and admin staff.

Major version

A new major version indicates major feature or functionality changes that could be disruptive to users or administrators of the system without preparation (i.e. a chance for staff to read documentation or get an overview of new UI).

A new major version must be created if there are any changes that cannot be deployed by simply updating the server image, but also require manual technical staff effort from downstream deployments to incorporate. Examples of this kind of effort include new configuration values, altering deployment infrastructure, etc. In general, the CiviForm core team seeks to minimize effort needed by downstream maintainers to perform version upgrades.

Admins should ensure they have database backups before applying a new major change.

Minor version

A new minor version indicates feature or functionality changes that enable significant new capabilities in the system, but are unlikely to be disruptive and do not require preparation. Examples of such changes include new features, new APIs or API versions, and new resources in the system.

A new minor version may also indicate changes in the database schema, file key naming schema, or other stateful parts of the application. New minor versions should be deployable by simply updating the server image (the Play Framework evolutions system should update the database schema automatically).

Admins should ensure they have database backups before applying a new minor change.

Patch version

A new patch version indicates changes to stateless server code only, and is typically a refinement or improvement. Those changes may include bug fixes, dependency updates, UI polish, new minor functionality, but not stateful changes.

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