release-update

name	release-update
description	Checklist for an NIC, NGF or ingress2gateway release — the three version formats a plain grep misses, the feature badges that must not be swept along, and the compatibility and Kubernetes-version rules most often missed. Use when bumping any product version.

Release update checklist

Update all of the following. The version numbers are scattered across spans, badges, install commands and JS fallbacks, and updating the obvious ones feels like finishing the job.

Run python3 .github/scripts/check-versions.py first and last. It parses VERSION_CONFIG and MigrationTool.NIC and asserts every copy on the site agrees with them, so it tells you what a bump still has left to do — and, run first, it tells you whether the site was already consistent before you started. It does not know what the correct upstream version is; that judgement is yours.

Note the asymmetry that makes a half-finished bump hard to notice by eye: index.js fetches live releases, so the landing page renders current versions in a browser regardless of what the file says. The migration tool has no fetch path. So the page that looks right is the one that self-heals, and the one nobody notices is the one readers copy install commands from.

The three version formats

A v-prefixed grep misses two of them. The format is set per call site by data-version-format:

Format	Renders	Where
(default)	v5.5.4	release tags, hero badges, sidebar
bare	2.6.4	Helm --version flags, which reject a leading v
atv	@v1.2.0	the go install module suffix

The two steps that get missed

The compatibility table. Never bump a version without it. On every NIC and NGF release, that product's compat table moves too: its NGINX OSS version and its Kubernetes row.

Kubernetes versions. The compat tables always show the latest 3 Kubernetes minor versions, matching upstream's support window — verify against kubernetes/kubernetes releases. This is not the project's full supported range. Do not widen the list to match a project's broader minimum: writing "1.31 – 1.35" because NGF supports 1.31+ is wrong, because the older minors are end-of-life upstream regardless. When the latest-3 window shifts, the tables shift with it.

Before documenting anything new

Every feature, annotation, ConfigMap key or CRD field must exist in the released version being referenced. Verify with mcp__github__get_file_contents against the tag — never main, never from memory. Audit the release notes to identify genuinely new features, but do not pre-document features from versions that have not shipped. For the fuller accuracy procedure, see the migration-tool skill.

Both products — index.html

For <nic|ngf>, whichever shipped:

• Version fallback text in the data-version="<nic|ngf>.release" spans — sidebar, hero badge, Key Details.
• The release-tag link in the hero badge (href).
• Helm chart version in the data-version="<nic|ngf>.helm" spans and in the Helm install command.
• VERSION_CONFIG fallback values for <nic|ngf>.release and <nic|ngf>.helm in assets/js/index.js.
• The compatibility table in that product's section — NGINX OSS version and Kubernetes rows. The OSS version comes from NGINX_OSS_VERSION in build/Dockerfile at the release tag for NIC, and from the release notes / README technical-specs table for NGF.

NGF only

• Supported Resources tag list — review against apis/v1alpha1 and apis/v1alpha2 at the release tag to catch new CRDs (WAFPolicy arrived in v2.6.0). Keep tags alphabetical within the NGF custom-resources block.
• Gateway API version in the "Fully Conformant Gateway API" pill and the feature-card copy — update if the release bumps the conformant Gateway API version. It appears twice in index.html; as of this writing both read v1.5.1, so grep the current value rather than trusting that.

ingress2gateway only

It has no Helm chart and no compatibility table, which is exactly why it is the product that goes stale: nothing about it looks like the NIC/NGF checklist above, so following that checklist skips it entirely. Four places:

• VERSION_CONFIG.i2g.fallback.release in assets/js/index.js.
• The sidebar data-version="i2g.release" span.
• The hero badge — both its text and its releases/tag/ href.
• The go install line, which is data-version-format="atv" and so renders @v1.2.0.

Feature badges are not version pins

The migration tool carries 22 badge badge-new spans (11× New v5.4.0, 11× New v5.5.0). They state which release introduced a construct and must never be swept along with a bump — moving one turns a true statement into a false one. They are unmanaged: when a release adds a construct, add its badge by hand against that release's notes, and leave every existing badge alone. check-versions.py deliberately ignores them.

The same applies to INGRESS_NGINX_VERSION: kubernetes/ingress-nginx is archived and controller-v1.15.1 is its final release, so it is a constant rather than a pin.

NIC only — the migration tool

The tool does not reference NGF at all, so an NGF release never touches it.

• MigrationTool.NIC at the top of assets/js/migration-core.js (VERSION, HELM_VERSION). This is the single source of truth for the NIC side of the Version Reference banners, the standalone kubectl apply example, and the analyzer's CRD-install references on every migration page — the install commands and release URL derive from it.
• INGRESS_NGINX_VERSION at the top of assets/js/migration-ingress-nginx.js — the source-controller side of the banner; its release link derives from it. Note kubernetes/ingress-nginx was archived in March 2026 and controller-v1.15.1 is its final release, so this should not need bumping again.
• The static fallback text inside the data-*-version spans and data-*-release-link anchors in ingress-nginx-migration.html, so readers without JS see the correct version before the scripts run.

After

Run all seven, each on its own line, then render the changed pages and look at them — none of them can see a rendered page.

for f in assets/js/*.js; do node --check "$f" || break; done
python3 .github/scripts/check-tokens.py
python3 .github/scripts/check-contrast.py
python3 .github/scripts/check-classes.py
python3 .github/scripts/check-versions.py
node    .github/scripts/test-analyzer.js
node --test .github/test/*.test.js

Also update the compat cells, which carry data-compat="nginx" and data-compat="kubernetes" so they can be found per product rather than by matching a bare number that appears elsewhere on the page. Nothing derives them, so they remain the one part of a release that only a human can confirm.