Knative release principles

Knative Release Principles

Principles

These principles are forward looking from release 0.13.x onward. There are plenty of examples where some or all of these principles have not been followed in the past. We are not looking to change past behavior, but to help define future behavior for the project.

Overarching principle:

Wherever possible† follow the principles that are widely adopted by Kubernetes for API changes and API deprecation.

† - Some things may not be possible due to either the maturity of CRDs or the mechanism by which they are implemented (e.g. not an API Server, no conversion webhooks, bugs).

K8s minimum version principle:

We (the community) support the range of upstream minor Kubernetes versions that are Kubernetes community supported at the time of the cut. Only the latest patch release of the minor version is tested for support. Support for versions prior to that are best effort, or by vendors.

Knative community support window principle:

We (the community) support the most recent 4 versions of Knative. The term support as used here means that we will maintain release branches for these releases. We will consider backporting applicable fixes to these release branches depending on severity and feasibility.

Default and optional API versions principle:

There will be at least one common API version available across all community supported versions (See Community support window principle) at any given time. At least one of these common API versions will be enabled by default from the open source installation path. The open source installation process may allow optional API versions at the discretion of the installing user.

API Support Principle:

We (the community) support all API versions (both default and optional) available from current community supported Knative releases. We will keep Beta API versions available in releases for at least 9 months and GA API versions in releases for at least 12 months after deprecation is announced. Earlier API versions are best effort, or by vendors. See FAQ for v1alpha1.

We (the community) recommend that clients developing to a static API version (including non-versioned tests) develop to the highest common API version offered across supported community releases at the time of development. Where feasible a dynamic client should be preferred.

Example: If 0.8.x through 0.11.x are the current community supported versions then v1alpha1 would be the recommended client version as 0.8.x does not support v1beta1 nor v1 by default. This makes v1alpha1 the common version. (Note: This would mean 0.11.x must support v1alpha1 by default otherwise we do not have any minimum overlapping version).

Runtime Conformance Principle:

In order to be runtime conformant for a given release, an installation must pass the runtime conformance tests for the installed version and 3 prior versions (as determined by the supported version principle). This means runtime tests for a given version should follow the recommended API version principle to be forwards compatible when run against one of the 3 subsequent versions.

API Conformance Principle:

In order to be API conformant for a given release, an installation must pass conformance for the installed version and 3 prior versions for common API versions. There will always be at least one such version due to the principles above.

Project, Feature, and Sub-Feature Phase Principle:

There will be a phase identified for each project, feature, and sub-feature for each release. Each of the phases: Alpha, Beta, and Stable will have clear definitions related to performance, deprecation and maintenance.

Alpha Beta Stable
Purpose Works with possible limitations Works end to end Production Ready
API May not be backward compatible Versioned, may not be backward compatible Versioned / Backward Compatible
Performance No guarantee No guarantee - Baseline Performance is quantified, documented, and guarantees against regression
Deprecation Notice none 9 months 12 months

FAQ

What happens during upgrades of Knative?

We support upgrading versions of Knative from any community supported version of Knative to a minor version one higher. Upgrade steps larger than one minor version must go through an intermediate version first. As an example, if the current community versions are 0.9.x through 0.12.x the upgrade matrix will look like below:

Knative Version Upgrades to
0.9.x 0.10.x
0.10.x 0.11.x
0.11.x 0.12.x
0.12.x N/A

What happens during downgrades of Knative?

Knative downgrades are a harder story than upgrades as the purpose of the upgrades are to fix bugs and add features. That said there are many cases where a downgrade or rollback is appropriate. As downgrades are more difficult to get right Knative will make a best effort to support downgrade of a single minor version and only if users have not already taken advantage of new features or fields.

This means that we need to support the downgrade tests case within our project to ensure that downgrade is indeed possible before code checked in and releases are cut.

What happens during upgrades of Kubernetes?

Strawman: Upgrading Kubernetes may move you from a Kubernetes version for which a release was intended to a newer version that may have not been originally qualified. We expect this to work given Kubernetes backwards compatibility support. We intend for these upgrades to be a non-issue. If particular versions are found to be incompatible and the Knative version is still community supported we will either:

  1. work with the Kubernetes community on a fix or
  2. develop a patch release to workaround the issue. We will publish guidance on potential incompatibility on knative.dev

Which API endpoints should I enable when I vend/host Knative Serving?

Vendors may make their decisions about supporting API versions. They may decide to support optional API versions by default or may support API versions that are EOL in the open source community. The recommendation of the community is to offer all APIs versions that the Open Source project makes available by default for a given release version. This offers clients the best interoperability and users the best portability.

What about Serving v1alpha1 API support?

Due to the length of time we have supported v1alpha1, the ubiquity of availability across released Knative Serving versions, and the presence of clients statically developed against this version we will treat the current set of v1alpha1 Serving APIs as ‘Beta’ APIs. This means that we will keep v1alpha1 available in releases for at least 9 months after deprecated is announced. During that period of time of availability, we will evaluate whether the API is available through the default Open Source installation by following the Default and optional API versions principle.

What happens when the minimum Kubernetes version for a supported Knative release is no longer supported by Kubernetes?

We will explicitly avoid introducing changes into a Knative Serving release branch that would raise the minimum version. We will not keep around test clusters for unsupported Kubernetes versions, but we will attempt to solve user reported bugs to the best of our ability.

Can we have the table below on knative.dev?

Yes. We will publish a table similar to below once we have agreement on the principles so that users can easily determine versions and endpoints available for a given release.

Knative Version Tables

Storage Type = The type that is stored in etcd by the Kubernetes API Server

API Endpoints = The rest endpoints that are made available to clients

API Types = The API types that the endpoint understands

Lemonade = v1alpha1 + v1beta1 super-set type (Serving only)

Force Upgrade = Automatically convert v1alpha1 to v1beta1 syntax via Lemonade

Availability =

  • Default means installed through typical open source release.
  • Optional means available in the open source, but will not be installed by default.
  • Removed means support no longer exists within the open source release

Note: subject to change based on verification of (knative, kube) version tuple

Knative Serving Version Table

Knative Version Release Date End of LIfe Date Min K8s Version Storage Type Force Upgrade API Endpoints API Type Served Availability
0.20.x 2020-12-22 2021-06-08 1.19.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 removed
v1alpha1 Lemonade removed
0.19.x 2020-11-10 2021-04-27 1.19.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 removed
v1alpha1 Lemonade removed
0.18.x 2020-09-29 2021-03-16 1.19.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 optional (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade optional (deprecated)
0.17.x 2020-08-18 2021-02-02 1.17.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default (deprecated)
0.16.x 2020-07-07 2020-12-22 1.16.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default (deprecated)
0.15.x 2020-05-26 2020-11-10 1.16.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default (deprecated)
0.14.x 2020-04-14 2020-09-29 1.15.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default (deprecated)
0.13.x 2020-03-03 2020-08-18 1.15.x v1alpha1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default (deprecated)
0.12.x 2020-01-21 2020-07-07 1.15.x v1alpha1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default
v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.11.x 2019-12-10 2020-05-26 1.14.x v1alpha1 (Lemonade) Yes v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default
v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.10.x 2019-10-29 2020-04-14 1.14.x v1alpha1 (Lemonade) Yes v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 default (deprecated)
v1alpha1 Lemonade default

(deprecated)

0.9.x 2019-09-17 2020-03-03 1.13.10 v1alpha1 (Lemonade) Yes v1 v1 optional
1.13.10 v1beta1 v1beta1 optional
1.11 v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.8.x 2019-08-06 2020-01-21 1.13.10 v1alpha1 (Lemonade) Yes v1beta1 v1beta1 optional
1.11 v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.7.x 2019-06-25 2019-12-10 1.13.10 v1alpha1 (Lemonade) Yes v1beta1 v1beta1 optional
1.11 v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.6.x 2019-05-14 2019-10-29 1.11 v1alpha1 (Lemonade) No v1alpha1 Lemonade default
0.5.x 2019-04-02 2019-09-17 1.11 v1alpha1 N/A v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default
0.4.x 2019-02-19 2019-08-06 1.11 v1alpha1 N/A v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default
0.3.x 2019-01-08 2019-06-25 1.11 v1alpha1 N/A v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default
0.2.x 2018-10-30 2019-05-14 1.09 v1alpha1 N/A v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default
0.1.x 2018-07-18 2019-04-02 1.09 v1alpha1 N/A v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default

Knative Eventing Version Table

Knative Version Release Date End of Life Date Min K8s Version Storage Type Force Upgrade API Endpoints API Type Served Availability
0.19.x 2020-12-22 2021-06-08 1.19.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 removed
0.18.x 2020-09-29 2021-03-16 1.19.x v1 N/A v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 not served
0.17.x 2020-08-18 2021-02-02 1.17.x v1 Yes v1 v1 default
v1beta1 v1beta1 optional (deprecated)
v1alpha1 v1alpha1 removed
0.16.x 2020-07-07 2020-12-22 1.16.x v1beta1 N/A v1 v1 optional
v1beta1 v1beta1 default
v1alpha1 v1alpha1 not served
0.15.x 2020-05-26 2020-11-10 1.16.x v1beta1 Yes v1beta1 v1beta1 default
v1alpha1 v1alpha1 optional (deprecated)
0.14.x 2020-04-14 2020-09-29 1.15.x v1alpha1 N/A v1beta1 v1beta1 default
v1alpha1 v1alpha1 optional (deprecated)
0.13.x 2020-03-03 2020-08-18 1.15.x v1alpha1 N/A v1beta1 v1beta1 optional
v1alpha1 v1alpha1 default