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SignalK Versions

Scope: All SignalK plugins (family = "signalk-plugin" in repos.toml)

Policy - SignalK Server

Section titled “Policy - SignalK Server”

Support a rolling 6 months of signalk-server releases.

  • Ideally this would be a year, but signalk-server is changing fast
  • The oldest supported release is the one that was current 6 months ago, i.e. the latest non-prerelease published on or before that date
  • Plugins must work on every release from the oldest supported to the latest
    • Don’t use server APIs added after the oldest supported release, unless the plugin checks for them at runtime and degrades gracefully
  • Declare the floor in package.json as "engines": { "signalk-server": ">=X.Y.Z" }
  • Raise the declared floor when a plugin needs a newer API, otherwise at most once a quarter. A declared floor a little below the window does no harm in between (decided in hq#53, 2026-10-29)
  • The window applies to the CI test matrix as well as to the floor in package.json: test the oldest supported release and the latest
  • Example
    • On 2026-10-21 the window starts 2026-04-21
    • v2.25.0 (2026-04-19) was current then, so supported range is v2.25.0 to v2.34.0

Policy - Node

Section titled “Policy - Node”

The minimum Node version is the engines.node of the oldest supported signalk-server release.

  • Set engines.node in every plugin’s package.json to exactly that range
  • When the window moves past a signalk-server release that raised its Node minimum, raise the plugins’ engines.node to match. Never set it lower than the server’s.
  • CI node-version uses that minimum major
  • Always use the latest point release within a major version
  • Example
    • signalk-server v2.25.0 declares "node": ">=22", so plugins declare "node": ">=22"

Responsibilities

Section titled “Responsibilities”
  • Vulnerabilities in Node, SignalK, other plugins or SignalK dependencies are not Rhizomatics responsibilites. An exception is if there is some specific vulnerable feature that is used by the plugins and which requires immediate remediation and/or advice to users to avoid.

Checking

Section titled “Checking”

Find the oldest supported release with gh api "repos/SignalK/signalk-server/releases?per_page=60" (skip prereleases), then read its Node minimum from package.json at that tag: gh api "repos/SignalK/signalk-server/contents/package.json?ref=<tag>".