In semantic versioning, what does each of MAJOR, MINOR, and PATCH represent?

• A. Major increments on every release; Minor for hotfixes; Patch for minor changes.
• B. SemVer uses only date-based increments.
• C. Major breaks compatibility, Minor adds features, Patch fixes issues; helps planning upgrades.
• D. SemVer increases all fields equally every release.

Answer: (C)

In semantic versioning, the three numbers signal how a release should be treated by users and downstream code in terms of compatibility. The major version change is reserved for releases that introduce incompatible API changes, meaning existing code that depends on the earlier API may break and will likely need changes to work with the new version. The minor version increases when new features are added in a backward-compatible way, so existing code continues to work but can now take advantage of the new capabilities. The patch version advances for backward-compatible fixes, such as bug fixes, performance improvements, or small changes that don’t alter the public API.

This pattern helps you plan upgrades: if you’re dependent on a library, a major bump warns you that you may need to adjust your code, a minor bump indicates new features you might want to adopt without altering the current usage, and a patch bump suggests the update should be safe to apply without any code changes. The other descriptions are not aligned with how semantic versioning communicates compatibility: one suggests breaking changes happen every release, another claims date-based increments, and another implies all parts increase equally.