Versioning a Design System with Semantic Versioning
Use Semantic Versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH) to signal the impact of design system changes. This tells teams if an update is a breaking change (MAJOR), a new feature (MINOR), or a bug fix (PATCH).
Use Semantic Versioning (SemVer) to manage design system updates. A version like 2.1.0 tells consumers the type of change: MAJOR for breaking changes, MINOR for new features, and PATCH for bug fixes. This helps teams decide when to upgrade; a PATCH is safe, but a MAJOR release requires planning. This applies to both holistic (IBM Carbon) and incremental (Morningstar) release strategies. The biggest footgun is misclassifying a breaking change as a MINOR update, which can unexpectedly break applications that rely on backward compatibility.
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