.. _versioning:

============================ Versioning and API stability

Versioning

There are 3 numbers in a Scrapy version: A.B.C

A is the major version. This will rarely change and will signify very large changes.
B is the release number. This will include many changes including features and things that possibly break backward compatibility, although we strive to keep these cases at a minimum.
C is the bugfix release number.

Backward-incompatibilities are explicitly mentioned in the :ref:release notes <news>, and may require special attention before upgrading.

Development releases do not follow 3-numbers version and are generally released as dev suffixed versions, e.g. 1.3dev.

.. note:: With Scrapy 0.* series, Scrapy used odd-numbered versions for development releases. This is not the case anymore from Scrapy 1.0 onwards.

Starting with Scrapy 1.0, all releases should be considered production-ready.

For example:

1.1.1 is the first bugfix release of the 1.1 series (safe to use in production)

API stability

API stability was one of the major goals for the 1.0 release.

Methods or functions that start with a single dash (_) are private and should never be relied as stable.

Also, keep in mind that stable doesn't mean complete: stable APIs could grow new methods or functionality but the existing methods should keep working the same way.

.. _deprecation-policy:

Deprecation policy

We aim to maintain support for deprecated Scrapy features for at least 1 year.

For example, if a feature is deprecated in a Scrapy version released on June 15th 2020, that feature should continue to work in versions released on June 14th 2021 or before that.

Any new Scrapy release after a year may remove support for that deprecated feature.

All deprecated features removed in a Scrapy release are explicitly mentioned in the :ref:release notes <news>.