Versioning
Red is versioned as major.minor.micro
While this is very similar to SemVer, we have our own set of guarantees.
Major versions are for project wide rewrites and are not expected in the foreseeable future.
End-user Guarantees
Red provides support for wide variety of operating systems.
Support for an entire operating system (including support for any single architecture on that system) may only be dropped in a minor or major version bump.
Red will continue to, at the very least, support current latest stable version of each operating system + architecture that were supported by previous micro versions.
In addition to that, we strive (but do not guarantee) to provide support for all versions that are currently supported by operating system’s developers per the table below. We generally drop support for no longer supported OS versions as soon as they reached their end-of-life date.
Note
We recommend to always use the latest OS version supported by Red.
Tip
The meaning of architecture names:
x86-64 (also known as amd64) refers to computers running a 64-bit version of the operating system on standard Intel and AMD 64-bit processors supporting x86-64-v2 instruction set (post-2008 Intel processors and post-2011 AMD processors).
aarch64 (also known as arm64) refers to computers running an ARM 64-bit version of the operating system on 64-bit ARM processors (ARMv8-A and ARMv9-A) such as Apple M1 devices or Raspberry Pi computers (Raspberry Pi 3B and above, excluding Pi Zero (W/WH) model).
armv7l (also known as armhf) refers to computers running an ARMv7 version of the operating system on 32-bit or 64-bit ARM processors (ARMv7-A, ARMv8-A, ARMv9-A) such as Raspberry Pi computers (2B and above, excluding Pi Zero (W/WH) model).
Operating system version |
Supported architectures |
Ideally supported until |
---|---|---|
Windows 10 |
x86-64 |
2025-10-14 (End/Retirement Date) |
Windows 11 |
x86-64 |
|
macOS 12 (Monterey) |
x86-64, aarch64 |
~2024-10 |
macOS 13 (Ventura) |
x86-64, aarch64 |
~2025-10 |
macOS 14 (Sonoma) |
x86-64, aarch64 |
~2026-10 |
Alma Linux 8 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-05-31 (How long will CloudLinux support AlmaLinux?) |
Alma Linux 9 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2032-05-31 |
Amazon Linux 2023 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2028-03-15 (end-of-life) |
Arch Linux |
x86-64 |
forever (support is only provided for an up-to-date system) |
CentOS Stream 9 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2027-05-31 (expected EOL) |
Debian 11 Bullseye |
x86-64, aarch64, armv7l |
~2024-07 (End of life) |
Debian 12 Bookworm |
x86-64, aarch64, armv7l |
~2026-09 (End of life) |
Fedora Linux 39 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2024-11-12 (End of Life) |
Fedora Linux 40 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2025-05-13 (End of Life) |
openSUSE Leap 15.5 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2024-12-31 (end of maintenance life cycle) |
openSUSE Tumbleweed |
x86-64, aarch64 |
forever (support is only provided for an up-to-date system) |
Oracle Linux 8 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-07-31 (End of Premier Support) |
Oracle Linux 9 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2032-06-31 (End of Premier Support) |
Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) 11 |
armv7l |
~2025-10 (approximate date of release of Raspberry Pi OS 13) |
Raspberry Pi OS 12 |
aarch64, armv7l |
~2025-10 (approximate date of release of Raspberry Pi OS 13) |
RHEL 8 (latest) |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-05-31 (End of Maintenance Support) |
RHEL 8.8 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2025-05-31 (End of Extended Update Support) |
RHEL 8.10 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-05-31 (End of Extended Update Support) |
RHEL 9 (latest) |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2032-05-31 (End of Maintenance Support) |
RHEL 9.2 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2025-05-31 (End of Extended Update Support) |
RHEL 9.4 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2026-04-30 (End of Extended Update Support) |
Rocky Linux 8 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-05-31 (end-of-life) |
Rocky Linux 9 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2032-05-31 (end-of-life) |
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2025-06-30 (End of Standard Support) |
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2027-06-30 (End of Standard Support) |
Ubuntu 23.10 |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2024-07-31 (End of Standard Support) |
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS |
x86-64, aarch64 |
2029-06-30 (End of Standard Support) |
Developer Guarantees
Any name (function, class, attribute) listed in the __all__
attribute of
the redbot
module (excluding its submodules), redbot.core
package,
or any of its public submodules (modules that do not start with “_”)
is considered a public API and should not break without notice.
Methods of public classes are considered public if they do not start with “_”
or are dunder methods (e.g. method()
and __getattr__()
are public but _method()
isn’t).
Any other name (function, class, attribute) in the redbot
package is considered private,
even if it doesn’t start with “_”.
Lack of __all__
in the module means that all of its names are considered private APIs.
Anything in the redbot.cogs
and redbot.vendored
modules or any of their submodules is specifically
excluded from being guaranteed.
Method names and names of attributes of classes, functions, extensions, and modules
provided by or provided to the bot should not begin with
red_
or be of the form __red_*__
except as documented.
This allows us to add certain optional features non-breakingly without a name conflict.
Any RPC method exposed by Red may break without notice.
If you would like something in here to be guaranteed, open an issue making a case for it to be moved.
Exclusions
Any exclusion from these guarantees should be noted in the documentation of the affected attribute, function, class, or method. The term “provisional” may be used in documentation to note such exclusions.
Breaking Change Notices
Breaking changes in Red will be noted in the changelog with a special section.
Breaking changes may only occur on a minor or major version bump.
A change not covered by our guarantees may not be considered breaking for these purposes, while still being documented as a breaking change in internal documentation for the purposes of other internal APIs.