Block Versions

Blocks are the core concept of the Element platform. One benefit of blocks is that they can be reused over any number of sites. For example, if you operated 1,000 Element sites and reused a common block among all of them, updating that one block would update it across all 1,000 sites in one operation. If the update was error free, everything would be fine; however, if that update caused a problem, that problem would be present across all 1,000 sites. Therefore, a safe and effective release cycle is required for blocks.

Staging vs. Production

During development, a block may be unstaged, staged, or live.

• An unstaged block is one that is undergoing development on your local machine. The Element platform has no knowledge of unstaged blocks.
• Once you want to test your changes, you publish your block. Publishing a block packages, tests, and pushes your code to our platform. Element is aware of staged blocks. Staged blocks can be previewed by members of your organization.
• Once you're satisfied with your changes, you may release your block, making it live to those outside of your organization if desired. Released blocks are visible by all themes using that block. When you release a change, you can release a major or minor version of the block code. We discuss releases and versions next.

Minor vs. Major Versions

A block can have multiple major versions. Additionally, inside each major version, a block may have multiple minor releases. Element treats major releases as breaking changes and forces site owners to opt in to that change. Minor release are considered non-breaking and are automatically deployed to all sites using that block. Let's look more closely at each use case.

• Minor releases are propagated automatically to all the users of your block. This is a convenient way to ship bug fixes and new features that doesn't affect the block look and feel or the block configuration. The block users do not need to perform any action to get your updates.
• Major releases are not propagated automatically, and users need to manually opt in for the new block versions. Major releases are important to ship new features on a block that are not compatible or can potentially change the look and feel of current sites.

Major releases are tagged internally with ascending numbers, starting from one. Each new version will increment the current release number by one. Minor versions do not require explicit numeric tagging, but tagging your minor releases using a git SHA or similar is a good practice. For more details, see "Track Block Versions."

You can add a release note for each release. Users of your block will be able to read the latest release note you add.