Design a release matrix for old servers and new clients
Partners upgrade clients and servers at different times, so latest-against-latest testing leaves a compatibility gap.
- Focused work estimate
- 6h + prerequisites
- Priority in the scenario
- High
- Engineering practice
- Release engineering · Compatibility
Estimated field mix
- Developer tooling40%
- API design30%
- Quality engineering30%
Field percentages are editorial estimates of the ticket's engineering focus. They total 100%; they are not measured time, proficiency scores, or ownership evidence.
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Project context
A fictional partner platform publishes TypeScript clients. Generator upgrades create noisy diffs, occasional runtime mismatches, and uncertainty about which schema was packaged.
Setup prerequisites
- Create a small public API schema and two local mock server versions; use a temporary local package registry or archive files.
Preceding work
Complete these dependencies, or supply their agreed outputs before taking this ticket.
- BSDKGEN-101 · Record the exact inputs behind a generated client
- BSDKGEN-102 · Normalize schema ordering without changing semantics
- BSDKGEN-106 · Detect breaking schema changes before rebuilding packages
- BSDKGEN-103 · Separate transport code from generated resource methods
- BSDKGEN-104 · Represent nullable and optional fields distinctly in clients
- BSDKGEN-105 · Generate errors that preserve safe machine-readable details
- BSDKGEN-107 · Test a packaged client from a clean consumer directory
Acceptance criteria
- Declare supported client/server pairs and exclusions.
- Run representative operations against each local server version.
- Document unknown behavior rather than marking untested pairs supported.
Implementation constraints
- Bound the matrix to two client and two server versions.
Verification to include
- Exercise a supported mixed-version pair.
- Expose an incompatible removed operation as an expected documented failure.
Deliverables
- Compatibility matrix and release recommendation.
Rollout and recovery
Promote only tested pairs; preserve previous client artifacts and migration instructions.
Value of the work
For the engineer: Practice reproducible generation, compatibility reviews, and package provenance.
For the team: Reduce partner integration surprises with reviewable clients and recoverable releases.
Evidence boundaries
Outcome Evidence: Tests, patches, and runbooks are requested deliverables. They become Outcome Evidence only through a qualified Mission and immutable Evidence IDs.
Ownership Evidence: Independent adaptation must be observed under a declared verification policy and cite immutable Evidence IDs. Completing a planning ticket establishes no Ownership Evidence.