About upgrades to new releases

You can benefit from new features and bug fixes for GitHub Enterprise Server by upgrading your instance to a newly released version.

In this article

GitHub Enterprise Server is constantly improving, with new functionality and bug fixes introduced through feature and patch releases.

Feature releases

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

Release candidates

All feature releases begin with at least one release candidate.

Release candidates are proposed feature releases, with a complete feature set. There may be problems in a release candidate which can only be found through feedback from customers actually using GitHub Enterprise Server.

For performance, stability, and security reasons:

  • Do not install a release candidate in a production environment. Release candidate builds are intended solely for use in a test or staging environment.
  • 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 when they are released, including generally available releases. Instead, destroy the release candidate environment as soon as the generally available release is available.

As you test a release candidate, please provide feedback by contacting support. See "GitHub Support documentation."

Each new release candidate adds bug fixes for issues found in prior versions. When the release is ready for widespread adoption, GitHub publishes a stable feature release.

Patch releases

Patch releases:

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

Upgrading to a patch release typically requires less than five minutes of downtime.

Upgrading GitHub Enterprise Server

There are two ways to upgrade GitHub Enterprise Server:

Further reading