Engine versions explained #7799
Description
This issue outlines the current engine version hierachy and what each type of prerelease and release represents:
alpha (not implemented yet)
An alpha prerelease is the most unstable type of release purely for testing features in a branch for a PR. This is useful for mobile debugging and profiling new ideas without having to deploy a full release.
beta
A beta prerelease represents all the latest features that have been approved from the PR stage and have been merged into main the main development branch. These features have been initially tested but not gone through a more thorough testing process like for an official minor release. This is useful if you have some new API you want to take advantage for in other projects but do not want to build the engine from source as a submodule.
preview
A preview prerelease is the last type of prerelease which contains all the latest features or breaking changes prior to a minor release or bug fixes prior to a patch release. This is useful for testing large and complex projects in the Editor and additionally mobile testing and profiling.
patch
This is the smallest type of release which contains non-breaking changes to the engine. This will exclude any API changes or new features - only bug fixes. The Editor will only show the latest patch version for any particular minor release.
minor
This release contains all new features and additions to the engine API along with deprecations and breaking changes. The Editor supports both the latest minor and the previous minor to allow for migrations in API to occur across larger projects.
major
This type of release is reserved for large changes or additions to the engine API. A recent example of such was the addition of full WebGPU support and the removal of WebGL 1.0 support moving from v1.x.x to v2.x.x.