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versioning_policy.md

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Versioning policy

Starting with vLLM 0.7.x, the vLLM Ascend Plugin (vllm-project/vllm-ascend) project follows the PEP 440 to publish matching with vLLM (vllm-project/vllm).

vLLM Ascend Plugin versions

Each vllm-ascend release will be versioned: v[major].[minor].[micro][rcN][.postN] (such as v0.7.1rc1, v0.7.1, v0.7.1.post1)

  • Final releases: will typically be released every 3 months, will take the vLLM upstream release plan and Ascend software product release plan into comprehensive consideration.
  • Pre releases: will typically be released on demand, ending with rcN, represents the Nth release candidate version, to support early testing by our users prior to a final release.
  • Post releases: will typically be released on demand to support to address minor errors in a final release. It's different from PEP-440 post release note suggestion, it will contain actual bug fixes considering that the final release version should be matched strictly with the vLLM final release version (v[major].[minor].[micro]). The post version has to be published as a patch version of the final release.

For example:

  • v0.7.x: it's the first final release to match the vLLM v0.7.x version.
  • v0.7.1rc1: will be the first pre version of vllm-ascend.
  • v0.7.1.post1: will be the post release if the v0.7.1 release has some minor errors.

Branch policy

vllm-ascend has main branch and dev branch.

  • main: main branch，corresponds to the vLLM main branch, and is continuously monitored for quality through Ascend CI.
  • vX.Y.Z-dev: development branch, created with part of new releases of vLLM. For example, v0.7.1-dev is the dev branch for vLLM v0.7.1 version.

Usually, a commit should be ONLY first merged in the main branch, and then backported to the dev branch to reduce maintenance costs as much as possible.

Maintenance branch and EOL:

The branch status will be in one of the following states:

Branch Time frame Summary
Maintained Approximately 2-3 minor versions All bugfixes are appropriate. Releases produced, CI commitment.
Unmaintained Community interest driven All bugfixes are appropriate. No Releases produced, No CI commitment
End of Life (EOL) N/A Branch no longer accepting changes

Branch state

Note that vllm-ascend will only be released for a certain vLLM release version rather than all versions. Hence, You might see only part of versions have dev branches (such as only 0.7.1-dev / 0.7.3-dev but no 0.7.2-dev), this is as expected.

Usually, each minor version of vLLM (such as 0.7) will correspond to a vllm-ascend version branch and support its latest version (for example, we plan to support version 0.7.3) as following shown:

Branch Status Note
main Maintained CI commitment for vLLM main branch
v0.7.3-dev Maintained CI commitment for vLLM 0.7.3 version
v0.7.1-dev Unmaintained Replaced by v0.7.3-dev

Document Branch Policy

To reduce maintenance costs, all branch documentation content should remain consistent, and version differences can be controlled via variables in docs/source/conf.py. While this is not a simple task, it is a principle we should strive to follow.

Version Purpose Code Branch
latest Doc for the latest dev branch vX.Y.Z-dev (Will be main after the first final release)
version Doc for historical released versions Git tags, like vX.Y.Z[rcN]
stable（not yet released） Doc for latest final release branch Will be vX.Y.Z-dev after the first official release

As shown above:

  • latest documentation: Matches the current maintenance branch vX.Y.Z-dev (Will be main after the first final release). Continuously updated to ensure usability for the latest release.
  • version documentation: Corresponds to specific released versions (e.g., v0.7.3, v0.7.3rc1). No further updates after release.
  • stable documentation (not yet released): Official release documentation. Updates are allowed in real-time after release, typically based on vX.Y.Z-dev. Once stable documentation is available, non-stable versions should display a header warning: You are viewing the latest developer preview docs. Click here to view docs for the latest stable release..

Release Compatibility Matrix

Following is the Release Compatibility Matrix for vLLM Ascend Plugin:

vllm-ascend vLLM Python Stable CANN PyTorch/torch_npu
v0.7.1rc1 v0.7.1 3.9 - 3.12 8.0.0 2.5.1 / 2.5.1.dev20250218

Release cadence

Next final release (v0.7.x) window

Date Event
March 2025 Release candidates, v0.7.3rc1
March 2025 Final release passes, match vLLM v0.7.x latest: v0.7.1 or v0.7.3