Long-Term Support and Short-Term Support branches

Beginning with the October 2023 release, Optimizely Configured Commerce versions will be marked with a +STS (Short-Term Support) or +LTS (Long-Term Support). Just like any other deployment, you must include the release version number in the VersionInfo.yaml file in the customer’s extensions repository to deploy.

STS releases maintain the same month-to-month support as usual. This means that a week before a new release, Configured Commerce no longer publishes changes to the previous release, and all hotfixes are for the current release.

LTS releases only receive new features when a new branch is released (three times a year), which contains features from the previous STS release. This means the features have already been tested in live environments. LTS branches do receive hotfixes for their four-month life, and the hotfixes end the week before a new LTS branch release.

Customers can swap between LTS and STS if they want the new features from the STS branch or want to move from a STS branch to a more stable version with the next LTS release. However, version numbers can only go up for releases. Version numbers cannot be downgraded. For example, a customer on 5.1.2309.xxxx+LTS can go to 5.1.2310.xxxx+STS, and a customer on 5.1.2310.xxxx+STS can move to 5.1.2313.xxxx+LTS during the next LTS release. Customers on 5.1.2310.xxxx+STS cannot downgrade to 5.1.2309.xxxx+LTS.