Just like any other software component, external packages are often updated with new features, performance improvements, bug fixes, or security patches.

Keeping these packages as up-to-date as possible generally ensures that your project remains healthy, functional, and secure over time.

Semantic versioning

Semantic versioning (SemVer) is a software versioning system used to assign meaningful version numbers to packages, indicating the nature of changes:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

Where:

• MAJOR: Introduces a breaking change, making the new version incompatible with the previous version (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 2.0.0).

• MINOR: Introduces a new feature with backward compatibility (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 1.1.0).

• PATCH: Introduces a bug fix without affecting existing functionality or adding new features (e.g., 1.0.0 -> 1.0.1).

Defining version ranges