Glossary
Semantic Versioning (SemVer)
Semantic versioning is a version-numbering scheme of the form MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, where MAJOR marks breaking changes, MINOR marks backward-compatible features, and PATCH marks backward-compatible bug fixes.
Semantic versioning, abbreviated SemVer, encodes the impact of a release directly into its version number. A consumer can read v2.4.1 and infer that moving to v2.4.2 should be a safe bug-fix update, that v2.5.0 should add features without breaking anything, and that v3.0.0 signals an incompatible change that may require work to adopt.
Each part of the number has a precise rule: increment MAJOR for breaking changes and reset the others to zero, increment MINOR for new backward-compatible features and reset PATCH to zero, and increment PATCH for backward-compatible fixes. Pre-release versions append a label after a hyphen, such as v3.0.0-rc.1, to indicate they are not yet final.
SemVer functions as a contract between maintainers and the people who depend on their software. Honoring it lets consumers automate low-risk upgrades and reserve scrutiny for major versions, which is why dependency managers lean heavily on the scheme when resolving version ranges.