Flux plugin releases

The official Flux CLI plugins have a release lifecycle that is detached from the Flux distribution lifecycle.

The Flux distribution pins the Flux controllers and the main flux CLI to a coherent set of versions. Official plugins are released independently from that distribution cycle.

Plugin releases are shipped whenever new plugin features or fixes are ready. In addition, the Flux project ships plugin releases together with each Flux distribution minor release, so plugin dependencies can be aligned with the controllers and the main flux CLI at that point in time.

Because plugins can be released between Flux distribution releases, users should not expect plugin minor versions to match the Flux distribution minor version. For example, a plugin minor version may advance after a Flux distribution minor release if a new plugin feature is shipped the following week.

Official plugin repositories do not maintain release branches. Changes are merged into main, and releases are cut from signed SemVer tags on main.