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Project Status ​

Sprocket remains a pre-1.0 project, and as such, any part of its interface is technically subject to change between releases. In practice, however, the project has matured to the point where the command-line interface for most established commands (i.e., those not under the dev subcommand namespace) is relatively settled. We make a conscious effort not to alter the command interface unless we believe it is strictly necessary.

Stability across the project ​

Not all areas of Sprocket are equally stable. The following gives a rough sense of what to expect.

  • Established commands (e.g., run, check, lint, format, inputs). These are the most stable parts of the project. Changes to their interfaces are infrequent and made only when we believe they meaningfully improve the user experience.
  • Configuration (i.e., Sprocket.toml). This area is expected to undergo significant changes over the next several versions as we refine how backends, storage, and other options are configured. If you maintain configuration files across environments, keep an eye on the changelog when upgrading.
  • Experimental commands (i.e., those under the dev subcommand namespace). These commands are under active development, and their interfaces may change substantially—or be removed entirely—between releases.

Because Sprocket is still pre-1.0, we do not currently provide advance deprecation notices before breaking backwards compatibility for command interfaces. That said, we document each change so you know what to expect in each upgrade, as described below. In this way, we believe that you can depend on Sprocket in your workflows, even before the v1 release.

Release cadence ​

Sprocket follows a three-week release cycle, with new versions shipping on every third Wednesday. You can track upcoming and past releases on the GitHub releases page.

Upgrading between versions ​

We rigorously document all changes, including breaking ones, in the CHANGELOGs for both Sprocket and its associated crates. All of this is surfaced in the release notes, so you can easily scan for things that affect your use of Sprocket. When upgrading, run through the release notes for each version you are jumping across and you should be set.

Getting help ​

If you run into trouble or have questions about a change, there are a few places to reach out.

  • OpenWDL Slack—the best place for general questions and conversation about Sprocket and WDL.
  • GitHub Issues—for reporting bugs or problems you encounter.
  • GitHub Discussions—for broader questions, ideas, and everything else.