Magento versioning schema

Magento software and Magento module releases have their own unique version number.

Software version format

A change in the version for the Magento software indicates a patch or feature release. This version change does not reflect the nature of the changes in the code base.

Module version format

The version field in a modules composer.json file specifies the module version and consists of three numbers in the following format:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

The format follows Semantic Versioning rules for any @api annotated by code:

• The MAJOR version increments when incompatible API changes are made.
• The MINOR version increments when backward-compatible functionality has been added or if the module’s customization points have changed.
• The PATCH version increments when backward-compatible bug fixes occur.

Pre-release versions

For pre-release versions, the format is:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH-<alpha | beta | rc>n

Magento’s module versioning policy complies with the following specifications:

• Semantic Versioning
• Composer version specification
• PHP version_compare() specification

Where versioning is used

The software version can be found in the source code of any Magento component or bundle, inside the composer.json file.

It can be declared as the version of the component:

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"name": "acme/foo",
"version": 1.2.0

Or it can be used to declare a dependency on a particular version of a component:

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"require": {
    "acme/foo": "1.2.*",
    "acme/bar": "2.2.0"
}

If Magento is installed from GitHub without using Composer, the version is not included. Magento Admin displays the version as Magento ver. dev-<GitHub-branch-name>. In addition, Magento modules inside the require declaration list a version of *. For example, "magento/framework": "*"

Related Topics

Module version dependencies - Information about how your module can depend on the version of other modules.

Codebase changes - Information on how changes in a Magento module’s codebase affect versions.

Backward compatible development - Information about MAJOR and MINOR changes and how they impact extension developers.