Using up-to-date package releases

Using outdated package releases is a risk to your organization. Like deprecated packages, older releases are less likely to be patched. While the package itself may still be actively maintained, older releases usually have security vulnerabilities and other potentially harmful issues.

How can Tidelift help?

The longer your organization waits to update to a newer release, the harder it may become as more changes are made to the package. With the Tidelift Subscription, you can keep outdated package releases out of your organization's catalog by using the Releases are up to date standard. Tidelift is regularly monitoring for package releases from the package manager. We will notify you when your team is using or wants to use outdated releases and help you uphold this standard.

What is considered outdated?

You can begin creating violations for outdated packages from the Catalog > Standards page and turning on the Releases are up to date standard. Each organization is different so we allow you to specify what you consider outdated.

Let's use an example. Suppose you set a default that all releases should be no more than 1 year older than the latest release. 2.0.0 is the latest release, but your projects are still using releases 1.5.0 and 1.0.0. In the example, Tidelift will alert you to update where you're using version 1.0.0, but not 1.5.0.

How do I keep my team from using outdated releases?

You can begin creating violations for outdated releases from the Catalog > Standards page and turning on the Releases are up to date standard.  

What happens if a package release in my catalog becomes outdated?

Tidelift is regularly monitoring all packages and will notify you if a package release that you are currently using becomes outdated by a newer release. A task will be generated for the catalog administrators to notify them about already-approved releases that violate this standard. For each package, the catalog administrators can resolve the violation by doing one of the following:

• Creating an exception for the outdated package release
• Deny the specific release of the package and providing alternative releases to upgrade to

What happens when a newly requested package release is outdated?

If a developer requests a package release that Tidelift knows to be outdated, the catalog administrators reviewing the request will see that there is a standard violation. The catalog administrators can do any of the following:

• Create an exception for the package release and approve the release
• Deny the release

Creating exceptions for outdated package releases (Not Recommended)

When a package release becomes outdated or a developer requests an outdated package release, you may still want to create an exception for this package release to be approved in your catalog. Exceptions can be created when completing a task and can apply to an entire package. You can view and export all outdated package exceptions by:

1. Going to Standards
2. Clicking on Configure standard under the Releases are up to date standard
3. Select View exceptions on the right
4. Click on Create new exceptions and fill in the appropriate information
5. Click Submit