How do we release

iCAS is released either when a feature is ready or when a sufficient amount of changes have accumulated. There is no fixed schedule and no coordination with other releases unless necessary.

Each release is first pushed to the sandbox so that the partners can test it for up to a week before we push it to production. Hotfix releases are pushed to both sandbox or production at any time.

All releases are announced at least 1h before the actual release. The release announcement contains a link to a changelog. Sandbox releases contain an expected production release date. Hotfix releases may be announced after the release depending on the severity.

We will try hard to avoid breaking changes but will deprecate features over time either because they are no longer used/required or have been superseded. Deprecated features are phased out over a longer period of typically 3-6 months. The initial change announcement contains a date when the feature will change or stop working. Partners are expected to update their code in a timely fashion.

The iCAS documentation is the only valid reference which describes how the iCAS APIs are supposed to be used. Other ways may exist because of bugs or side effects in our code but if they are not documented then they can be removed or changed at any time without warning or announcement. Partners are expected to read and follow the documentation and raise issues with the iCAS team where the documentation is not clear.

iCAS expects the partners to follow release announcements, examine changelogs and test sandbox releases for compatibility and communicate issues in a timely fashion.