commercetools Connect compatibility and release lifecycle
Compatibility
commercetools Connect uses continuous delivery to be able to deploy updates multiple times a day. This means that we don't have fixed release cycles, but instead release features as soon as they are ready. It also allows us to promptly correct any issues. While efforts are made to minimize breaking changes, the nature of management APIs means they may be subject to change without prior notice.
Implications
If the Customer sends additional undocumented fields, these can conflict with future new field names in commercetools Connect, causing runtime errors. Avoiding this is the responsibility of the Customer.
Release life cycle
Early access
After being initially deployed, new features can go through a early access phase for evaluation by selected customers. This phase aims to collect feedback early in the development cycle to improve and refine the new feature. Participating in early access programs is a great way to experiment with new features and share your insights with the Product team. Please note that early access features should not be used in production, and they do not have publicly available documentation or release notes; instead, participants are notified of any changes directly.
commercetools may change or discontinue early access functionalities at any time. These features might be removed entirely on rare occasions. Regardless of whether these functionalities are free or paid, or used in test or production environments, commercetools does not offer support, service level commitments, or remedies for them.
Reach out to your contact person at commercetools to learn about or to get access to early access features.
Public beta
Some new commercetools Connect features are tagged as BETA in the documentation. This means that the APIs related to that feature can be subject to change or discontinuation. Any such cases are announced in release notes.
Public beta APIs are robust and secure implementations. They receive Customer Support and bug fixes like general availability features but are not covered by Service Level Agreements or remedies. Specific security measures can differ from the documented security measures.
During the beta phase, feedback is highly appreciated as it contributes to identifying and resolving any issues, thereby ensuring that the feature is optimized for usability and performance.
General availability
Once a commercetools Connect feature is no longer tagged as BETA, it becomes generally available. The change in status is announced in release notes.
Deprecation
As commercetools Connect evolves, some features are superseded by better implementations and should not be used anymore. Any such cases are announced in release notes.