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VERSIONING.md

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Smart Contract Versioning and Release Process

The Smart Contract Versioning and Release Process closely follows a true semver for both individual contracts and monorepo releases. However, there are some changes to accommodate the unique nature of smart contract development and governance cycles.

There are five parts to the versioning and release process:

Note

The rules described in this document must be enforced manually. Ideally, a check can be added to CI to enforce the conventions defined here, but this is not currently implemented.

Semver Rules

Version increments follow the style guide rules for when to bump major, minor, and patch versions in individual contracts:

  • patch releases are to be used only for changes that do NOT modify contract bytecode (such as updating comments).
  • minor releases are to be used for changes that modify bytecode OR changes that expand the contract ABI provided that these changes do NOT break the existing interface.
  • major releases are to be used for changes that break the existing contract interface OR changes that modify the security model of a contract.

Bumping the patch version does change the bytecode, so another exception is carved out for this. In other words, changing comments increments the patch version, which changes bytecode. This bytecode change implies a minor version increment is needed, but because it's just a version change, only a patch increment should be used.

Individual Contract Versioning

Versioning for individual contracts works as follows:

  • A contract is only X.Y.Z on develop if it has been governance approved. If it's X.Y.Z before that, it must be on a branch. More on this below.
  • For contracts undergoing development, a -beta.n identifier must be appended to the version number.
  • For contracts in a release candidate state, an -rc.n identifier must be appended to the version number.
  • For contracts with feature-specific changes, a +feature-name identifier must be appended to the version number. See the Smart Contract Feature Development design document to learn more.
  • When making changes to a contract, always bump to the lowest possible version based on the specific change you are making. We do not want to e.g. optimistically bump to a major version, because protocol development sequencing may change unexpectedly. Use these examples to know how to bump the version:
    • Example 1: A contract is currently on 1.2.3.
      • We don't yet know when the next release of this contract will be. However, you are simply fixing typos in comments so you bump the version to 1.2.4-beta.1.
      • The next PR made to that same contract clarifies some comments, so it bumps the version to 1.2.4-beta.2.
      • The next PR introduces a breaking change, which bumps the version from 1.2.4-beta.2 to 2.0.0-beta.1. A 1.2.4-rc.1 and 1.2.4 version both never exist.
    • Example 2: A contract is currently on 2.4.7.
      • We know the next release of this contract will be a breaking change. Regardless, as you start development by fixing typos in comments, bump the version to 2.4.8-beta.1. This is because we may end up putting out a release before the breaking change is added.
      • Once you start working on the breaking change, bump the version to 3.0.0-beta.1.
      • Continue to bump the beta version as you make changes. When the contract is ready for release, bump the version to 3.0.0-rc.1.
  • New contracts start at 1.0.0-beta.1, increment the -beta.n counter during development, and become 1.0.0 when they are ready for production.

Monorepo Contracts Release Versioning

Versioning for monorepo releases works as follows:

  • Monorepo releases continue to follow the op-contracts/vX.Y.Z naming convention.
  • The version used for the next release is determined by the highest version bump of any individual contract in the release.
    • Example 1: The monorepo is at op-contracts/v1.5.0. Clarifying comments are made in contracts, so all contracts only bump the patch version. The next monorepo release will be op-contracts/v1.5.1.
    • Example 2: The monorepo is at op-contracts/v1.5.1. Various tech debt and code is cleaned up in contracts, but no features are added, so at most, contracts bumped the minor version. The next monorepo release will be op-contracts/v1.6.0.
    • Example 3: The monorepo is at op-contracts/v1.5.1. Legacy ALL_CAPS() getter methods are removed from a contract, causing that contract to bump the major version. The next monorepo release will be op-contracts/v2.0.0.
  • Feature specific monorepo releases (such as a beta release of the custom gas token feature) are supported, and should follow the guidelines in the Smart Contract Feature Development design doc. Bump the overall monorepo semver as required by the above rules, and append the -beta,n modifier to the version number. For example, if the last release before the custom gas token feature was op-contracts/v1.5.1, because the custom gas token introduces breaking changes, its beta release will be op-contracts/v2.0.0-beta.n.
    • A subsequent release of the custom gas token feature that fixes bugs and introduces an additional breaking change would be op-contracts/v2.0.0-beta.2.
    • This means +feature-name naming is not used for monorepo releases, only for individual contracts as described below.
  • A monorepo contracts release must map to an exact set of contract semvers, and this mapping must be defined in the contract release notes which are the source of truth. See op-contracts/v1.4.0-rc.4 for an example of what release notes should look like.

Release Process

When a release is proposed to governance, the proposal includes a commit hash, and often the contracts from that commit hash are already deployed to mainnet with their addresses included in the proposal. For example, the Fault Proofs governance proposal provides specific addresses that will be used.

To accommodate this, once contract changes are ready for governance approval, the release flow is:

  • On the develop branch, bump the version of all contracts to their respective X.Y.Z-rc.n. The X.Y.Z here refers to the contract-specific versions, so it differs per-contract. The -rc.n begins as -rc.1 for all contracts. Any -beta.n and +feature-name identifiers are removed at this point.
  • Branch off of develop and create a branch named proposal/op-contracts/vX.Y.Z. Here, X.Y.Z is the new version of the monorepo release.
    • Using the proposal/ prefix signals that this branch is for a governance proposal, and intentionally does not convey whether or not the proposal has passed.
  • Open a PR into the proposal/op-contracts/vX.Y.Z branch that removes the -rc.1 suffixes from all contracts.
    • This is the commit hash that will be tagged as op-contracts/vX.Y.Z-rc.1, used to deploy the contracts, and proposed to governance.
    • Sometimes additional release candidates are needed before proposal—see Additional Release Candidates for more information on this flow.
  • Once the governance approval is posted, any lock on contracts on develop is released.
  • Once governance approves the proposal, merge the proposal branch into develop and set the version of all contracts to the appropriate X.Y.Z after considering any changes made to develop since the release candidate was created.

Additional Release Candidates

Sometimes additional release candidate versions are needed. The process for this is:

  • Make the fixes on develop. Increment the -rc.n qualifier for the changed contracts only.
  • Open a PR into the proposal/op-contracts/vX.Y.Z branch that incorporates the changes from develop.
  • Open another PR to remove the new -rc.2 version identifiers from the changed contracts. Tag the resulting commit on the proposal branch as op-contracts/vX.Y.Z-rc.2.
  • This flow (1) ensures develop stays up to date during the release process, (2) mitigates the risk of forgetting to merge the release back into the develop branch, and (3) mitigates the risk of the merge into develop removing the required -rc.n version that is needed until the release is approved.

Merging Back to Develop After Governance Approval

A release will change a set of contracts, and those contracts may have changed on develop since the release candidate was created.

If there have been no changes to a contract since the release candidate, the version of that contract stays at X.Y.Z and just has the -rc.n removed. For example, if the release candidate is 1.2.3-rc.1, the resulting version on develop will be 1.2.3.

If there have been changes to a contract, the X.Y.Z will stay the same as whatever is the latest version on develop, with the -beta.n qualifier incremented.

For example, given that ContractA is 1.2.3-rc.1 on develop, then the initial sequence of events is:

  • We create the release branch, and on that branch remove the -rc.1, giving a final ContractA version on that branch of 1.2.3
  • Governance proposal is posted, pointing to the corresponding monorepo tag.
  • Governance approves the release.
  • Open a PR to merge the final versions of the contracts (ContractA) back into develop.

Now there are two scenarios for the PR that merges the release branch back into develop:

  1. On develop, no changes have been made to ContractA. The PR therefore changes ContractA's version on develop from 1.2.3-rc.1 to 1.2.3, and no other changes to ContractA occur.
  2. On develop, breaking changes have been made to ContractA for a new feature, and it's currently versioned as 2.0.0-beta.3. The PR should bump the version to 2.0.0-beta.4 if it changes the source code of ContractA.
    • In practice, this one unlikely to occur when using inheritance for feature development, as specified in Smart Contract Feature Development architecture. It's more likely that (1) is the case, and we merge the version change into the base contract.

This flow also provides a dedicated branch for each release, making it easy to deploy a patch or bug fix, regardless of other changes that may have occurred on develop since the release.

Changelog

Lastly, a CHANGELOG for contract releases must be maintained:

  • Each upcoming release will have a tracking issue that documents the new versions of each contract that will be included in the release, along with links to the PRs that made the changes.
  • Every contracts PR must have an accompanying changelog entry in a tracking issue once it is merged.
  • Tracking issue titles should be named based on the expected Upgrade number they will go to governance with, e.g. "op-contracts changelog: Upgrade 9".
    • See ethereum-optimism/optimism#10592 for an example of what this tracking issue should look like.
    • We do not include a version number in the issue because it may be hard to predict the final version number of a release until all PRs are merged.
    • Using upgrade numbers also acts as a forcing function to ensure upgrade sequencing and the governance process is accounted for early in the development process.