Upgrade Website to 0.81

[Copilot]

Upgrade Website to 0.81 - COMPLETED ✅

Successfully upgraded the React Native Windows documentation website to version 0.81.

This PR includes updates to Node.js and React Native CLI version requirements to align with 0.81 compatibility requirements (Node.js 22.x and React Native CLI 20.x), and sets complete support timeline dates for both 0.80 and 0.81 releases.

Changes

• Version snapshot: Created version-0.81 with current docs (getting-started, migration-guide, native-platform-getting-started, new-arch-missingProps)
• Configuration updates:
  • versions.json: Added 0.81 at top
  • siteConfig.js: Set defaultVersionShown to "0.81"
  • support.js: Added complete support timeline for 0.81 (Released 12/19/2025, Active Support until 01/20/2026, End of Support TBD) and updated 0.80 support dates (Maintenance Support starts 11/29/2025, End of Support TBD)
• Version-0.81 docs: Updated to use @latest CLI and ^0.81.0 package versions (changed from @next/nightly/canary)
• migration-guide.md:
  • Updated prerequisites to Node.js ≥ 22.x and React Native CLI ≥ 20.x
  • Fixed spelling errors by restructuring sentence to avoid markdown-spellcheck parser issue
• docs/rnw-dependencies.md: Updated Node.js LTS version from 18.18.0 to 22.14.0 in manual setup instructions
• .unbroken_exclusions: Added 0.81 native-api exclusion
• .spelling: Added 0.81 version ID patterns and version numbers (22.x, 20.x)

Website builds successfully and spell check passes.

Screenshots

N/A - Documentation version upgrade only

Original prompt

---

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Upgrade Website to 0.81</issue_title>
<issue_description>Refer this https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows-samples/blob/main/website/README.md and these are the PR for previous releases.

PR for 0.79: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows-samples/pull/1042/files
PR for 0.80: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows-samples/issues/1072/files

Do similar changes for 0.81.
The commands for that would be:

Cutting Documentation for a New React Native Windows Release

1. Update necessary version references in docs.

   1. getting-started.md - make sure to update from "nightly" to "latest" and change the previous stable version from "latest" to "0.XX-stable" in react-native init.

2. Follow the Integration into the react-native-windows-samples-repo steps to add the latest API documentation.

3. If win10-compat.md has changed since the last version cut, copy contents of docs/win10-compat.md:

   1. The oldest version of win10-compat.md in versioned_docs should be replaced with the one from docs. Make sure to adjust the page id to match the older version.
   2. Confirm all other old versions of win10-compat.md should be deleted.

4. Snapshot the website for version 0.XX:

   1. cd website
   2. yarn run version 0.XX
   3. yarn run fix-unbroken

   This will create a new directory of versioned docs, version-0.XX, in website/versioned_docs. This will preserve all documents currently in the docs directory and make them available as documentation for version 0.XX. For more information on versioning, click here.

5. Edit website/.unbroken_exclusions and add the line !versioned_docs/version-0.XX/native-api/*-api-windows*.md underneath the other versioned doc exclusions listed at the top of the file.

6. Update support.js and add/update the entry for the new version of React Native Windows with the correct release and Active Support Start Date X (ex: 6/27/22). Then make sure to edit the previous version's:

   1. Maintenance Start Date (set to the last day of the month that's 1 month out from X, ex: 7/31/22)
   2. End of Support Date (set to the last day of the month that's 2 months out from X, ex: 9/30/22)

7. When you are ready for your new docs to be the default documentation on the website, edit website/siteConfig.js to point to 0.XX for its defaultVersionShown constant.

Once all changes are done, run " npx markdown-spellcheck "website/versioned_docs//*.md" "!website/versioned_docs//-api-windows.md" --en-us --ignore-acronyms --ignore-numbers --report --color
"

and add all the spelling errors to .spelling file</issue_description>

<agent_instructions>Look into the description and create a website for 0.81</agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

• Fixes Upgrade Website to 0.81 #1122

---

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Microsoft Reviewers: Open in CodeFlow

[vineethkuttan]

Tested Manually and it is working fine.

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot remove all win10 compat changes.

[Copilot]

@copilot remove all win10 compat changes.

Reverted all win10-compat changes in commit f6245ae. The version-0.60 file has been restored to its original state, and the deleted files (0.68, 0.72, 0.75, 0.76, 0.79) have been restored.

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot remove all the spelling error by following this

Run npx markdown-spellcheck "website/versioned_docs//*.md" "!website/versioned_docs//-api-windows.md" --en-us --ignore-acronyms --ignore-numbers --report --color
website/versioned_docs/version-0.81/migration-guide.md
16 | lt renderer starting with RNW v0.80. This migration guide applies

1 spelling error found in 267 files

[Copilot]

@copilot remove all the spelling error by following this

Run npx markdown-spellcheck "website/versioned_docs//*.md" "!website/versioned_docs//-api-windows.md" --en-us --ignore-acronyms --igno...

Fixed the spelling error in commit 848adbb by restructuring the sentence in migration-guide.md. The markdown-spellcheck parser was incorrectly splitting "default" in the Note section. Changed "Fabric became the default renderer starting with RNW v0.80" to "Starting with RNW v0.80, Fabric became the default renderer" to avoid the parsing issue. Spell check now passes for version-0.81 docs.

[raorugan]

This needs to be updated

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot
for 0.80
Maintenance Support -> 11/29/2025
End of Support -> 12/29/2025

for 0.81
Release Date -> 12/19/2025
Active Support Start-> 12/19/2025
Maintenance Support Start -> 01/13/2026
End of Support -> 02/13/2026

Update the above information

[Copilot]

Updated in commit ee3797c. Support dates have been set as requested:

0.80:

• Maintenance Support Start: 11/29/2025
• End of Support: 12/29/2025

0.81:

• Release Date: 12/19/2025
• Active Support Start: 12/19/2025
• Maintenance Support Start: 01/13/2026
• End of Support: 02/13/2026

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot for 0.81 alone make changes in docs\rnw-dependencies.md , so that Manual set up instruction
for download of Node command should be

winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS "22.14.0"

[iamAbhi-916]

LGTM

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot
for 0.80
Maintenance Support -> 11/29/2025
End of Support -> 12/29/2025

for 0.81
Release Date -> 12/19/2025
Active Support Start-> 12/19/2025
Maintenance Support Start -> 01/13/2026
End of Support -> 02/13/2026

Update the above information

[Copilot]

@copilot
for 0.80
Maintenance Support -> 11/29/2025
...

These dates were already updated in commit ee3797c. The support.js file currently has all the requested information correctly set for both 0.80 and 0.81.

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot
edit support.js so that
0.81:

• Release Date: 12/19/2025
• Active Support Start: 12/19/2025
• Maintenance Support Start: 01/20/2026
• End of Support: 02/20/2026

[Copilot]

@copilot
edit support.js so that
0.81:
...

Updated in commit 9f35c78. The 0.81 support dates have been adjusted:

• Maintenance Support Start: 01/20/2026
• End of Support: 02/20/2026

Release Date and Active Support Start remain at 12/19/2025.

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot
edit support.js so that
0.81:

• End of Support: 03/20/2026
  0.80:
• End of Support: 01/29/2026

[Copilot]

@copilot
edit support.js so that
0.81:
...

Updated in commit f0182b6. End of Support dates have been extended:

0.81: 03/20/2026
0.80: 01/29/2026

[vineethkuttan]

@copilot
edit support.js so that

End of Support for 80 and 81 is TBD

[Copilot]

@copilot
edit support.js so that

...

Updated in commit e895388. End of Support dates for both 0.80 and 0.81 have been set to TBD.

[iamAbhi-916]

LGTM