Care Connect Profile Versioning

An overview of how profiles are versioned.

Important: This site is under active development by NHS Digital on behalf of INTEROPen and is intended to provide all the technical resources you need to successfully develop the Care Connect APIs. This project is being developed using an agile methodology so iterative updates to content will be added on a regular basis.

1. Product Versioning

Versioning of each technical “Product” or asset (i.e. API, Design Principle(s), Data Library) is managed using Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.

1.1. Semantic Versioning

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

A pre-release version MAY be denoted by appending a hyphen (refer to Semantic Versioning - Item 9)

For examples: 1.0.0-alpha.1 is a valid pre-release version.

1.2. Pre-release Labels

The following pre-release labels will be used across all products:

Pre-release Label	Lifecycle	Description
`alpha`		Complete enough for internal testing.
`beta`	early	Complete enough for external testing.
`beta`	late	Complete enough for external testing. Usually feature complete.
`rc`		Almost ready for final release. No new feature enhancements.

rc = Release Candidate.

1.3. Maturity Levels

To do: The following table is published as a work in progress version and as such is subject to change and extension.

Taking a similar approach to the FHIR Maturity Model Care Connect will only freeze / master a technical specification once it has been independently implemented in at least three systems and demonstrated to interoperate.

Level	Version	Description
1	`X.Y.Z-alpha.n`	Alpha; rapid iterations, fail fast, exploration, proof of concepts, approach flexible.	Draft may not have been implemented at all but has been published.
2	`X.Y.Z-beta.n`	Early Beta; rapid iterations, community engaged, scope flexible, high-level approach agreed in principle.	Draft partially implemented in one or more prototype systems.
3	`X.Y.Z-beta.n`	Late Beta; slower iterations, community engaged, scope largely agreed, high-level approach fixed.	Draft partially implemented two or more commercial systems.
4	`X.Y.Z-rc.n`	Release Candidate; slower iterations, community engaged, scope fixed, detailed approach fixed, no new features, bug fixes and amendments for clinical safety & IG only.	Draft implemented in at least two commercial systems.
5	`X.Y.Z`	Stable; release version.	Draft implemented in at least three commercial systems with full accreditation and assurance mechanisms in place.

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