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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →To version an API without breaking existing clients, preserve the existing contract wherever possible and make compatible changes additive. When clients must change, publish a new major version, run it alongside the old contract during migration, and give consumers clear upgrade instructions and retirement dates. A version label alone does not make a change safe: compatibility depends on how existing clients actually use requests, responses, errors, and behavior.
Define what “backward compatible” means for your API
Clients are often deployed independently, so an API owner cannot assume every consumer will upgrade when the server changes. Start by documenting the contract clients rely on—not just the endpoint schema.
- Routes, HTTP methods, parameters, and headers.
- Request and response fields, types, and requiredness.
- Error responses and status codes.
- Externally visible behavior, including meanings of existing inputs and outputs.
- Whether clients must tolerate unknown response fields, enum values, or derived types.
Microsoft’s REST API Guidelines illustrate why the policy must be explicit: adding a JSON response field may be compatible under one contract and breaking under another. Strict decoders or generated clients may reject data they do not recognize. Decide what clients may rely on, then test representative clients against that promise.
Classify a proposed change from the client’s point of view
A change is breaking when an existing client must change its implementation to keep working. Microsoft Graph uses this client-impact framing in its versioning and support policy. Assess more than whether a schema diff reports a removed field.
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- Usually breaking: removing or renaming an operation or parameter, changing the meaning of existing behavior, changing the error contract, or making a previously optional request element required.
- Potentially compatible: adding an optional capability without changing existing meanings or required inputs. Even adding a response field can break strict consumers, so compatibility depends on the documented client contract and actual client behavior.
Treat a change as breaking unless you have evidence that affected clients do not rely on the old contract and can migrate in a controlled way. A declaration that “clients should ignore unknown fields” is useful only if your clients and tooling follow it.
Prefer additive evolution when it is safe
Keep existing operations and meanings stable; add optional inputs or new capabilities rather than altering what old inputs do. Google Cloud Endpoints documents a convention of increasing the minor version for compatible changes and the major version when a change breaks client code. That is a platform’s guidance, not a universal standard; publish the compatibility rule your own API follows.
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Before treating an addition as safe, check whether consumers use strict JSON decoding, generated models, exhaustive enum handling, or assumptions about response shape. Verify behavior with representative client types, including generated or strict clients. If you cannot make the addition safe under the existing promise, treat it as a contract change rather than quietly introducing it into the old version.
Choose a clear version-selection mechanism
Clients need an unambiguous way to select a contract. Microsoft REST guidance allows version selection in the request path or a query parameter; Google Cloud Endpoints recommends putting the major version in the base path. Neither approach is universally best.
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| Approach | What clients see | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
| Path | A version in the URL path, such as /v2/. |
Visible in routes and commonly easy to distinguish in documentation and routing. Keep conventions consistent across services sharing an endpoint. |
| Query parameter | A version value in the request query string. | Leaves the path unchanged, but teams should evaluate how their clients, routing, caches, and proxies handle the parameter. |
Choose based on consistency across your services, client ergonomics, routing and operational needs, and how version selection appears in generated clients. Google’s base-path recommendation and Microsoft’s support for both patterns are documented approaches, not a rule that every API must follow. Use one predictable convention for related endpoints.
Run a new major contract alongside the old one
When an incompatible change is necessary, expose it as a new major version rather than silently changing the contract old clients call. Keep the previous version available during migration, and publish distinct documentation and support status for each version. Google Cloud Endpoints documents concurrent major versions and recommends implementing them in one backend in its platform-specific lifecycle guidance; that operational choice should not be mistaken for a requirement across all platforms.
A version number communicates a contract choice, not a guarantee. Google Cloud product manager Dan Ciruli described versioning as a way for API users to understand semantic changes. The useful signal comes from pairing the number with a clear compatibility policy, release notes, and tests.
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- Describe the change. Publish a change log that identifies what changed, who may be affected, and the replacement behavior.
- Give a concrete upgrade path. Explain how to move each affected request or response use to the new contract. Microsoft guidance calls for a clear upgrade path and deprecation plan when introducing a major version.
- Make adoption observable where possible. Track which clients still call the old version so you can target migration communication and understand remaining usage.
- Announce support status and retirement timing. Set a date consistent with your published policy and customer impact; distinguish stable production support from preview or beta terms.
- Retire through the announced process. Confirm consumers have a path forward, then publish the old version’s final status.
Retirement timelines are provider-specific. Microsoft Graph says it declares a version deprecated at least 24 months before retirement; that is Microsoft Graph policy, not a general industry minimum. Microsoft Graph also warns that its beta APIs can change and are not supported for production use, so preview terms should not be presented as stable-version guarantees.
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Use version numbers as a policy signal, not a substitute for compatibility
If you adopt major/minor numbering, state how it maps to compatibility. Google Cloud Endpoints documents minor increments for compatible changes and major increments when client code would break; a 2017 Google Cloud explanation likewise describes applying general semantic-versioning principles to APIs. These are conventions. They do not prevent breakage unless changes are reviewed against the contract, tested against clients, and supported through a published lifecycle.
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