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about-upgrades-to-new-releases.md

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title About upgrades to new releases
shortTitle About upgrades
intro Learn about how features and bug fixes are added to {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_server %} through new releases.
versions
ghes
*
contentType concepts
category
Back up and upgrade your instance

{% data reusables.enterprise.constantly-improving %}

Feature releases

Feature releases include new functionality and feature upgrades and typically occur quarterly.

All feature releases begin with at least one release candidate.

Release candidates

Release candidates are proposed feature releases, with a complete feature set. There may be problems that can only be found by customers actually using the release.

For performance, stability, and security reasons:

  • Do not install a release candidate in a production environment. Release candidate builds are intended solely for test and staging environments.
  • Do not upgrade to a release candidate from a supported, earlier version. Instead, install a release candidate in a new, test environment.
  • Do not upgrade from the release candidate to later versions, including generally available releases. Instead, destroy the release candidate environment.

As you test a release candidate, please provide feedback by contacting support. See AUTOTITLE.

Each new release candidate adds bug fixes for issues found in prior versions. When the release is ready for widespread adoption, {% data variables.product.company_short %} publishes a stable feature release.

Patch releases

Between feature releases, you can benefit from patch releases, which:

  • Consist of hot patches and bug fixes
  • Happen more frequently than feature releases
  • Are generally available when first released, with no release candidates
  • Typically require less than five minutes of downtime

Upgrading {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_server %}

There are two ways to upgrade {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_server %}:

  • To set up a completely new {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_server %} instance and configure the instance however you like, see AUTOTITLE and AUTOTITLE.
  • To upgrade your existing instance to a new release, see AUTOTITLE.

Further reading

  • [{% data variables.product.prodname_roadmap %}]({% data variables.product.prodname_roadmap_link %}) in the github/roadmap repository