← Otto Developer GuideVersioning & Releases

Otto ships as one thing: the compositor plus the components around it (otto-kit, otto-bar, otto-files, the portal, …). They are versioned together: a component’s version is the Otto release it belongs to, not an independent number.

One number, one place

The version lives in [workspace.package] in the root Cargo.toml:

[workspace.package]
version = "1.4.0"

Every workspace member inherits it:

[package]
name = "otto-kit"
version.workspace = true

So env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION") reports the same string from any crate — the compositor’s otto --version, a component’s log banner, a D-Bus property. authors, edition, license and repository are inherited the same way; add new members with those four plus version.workspace = true and they join the scheme automatically.

The sample-clients/ crates are throwaway protocol test clients and stay outside this; they are never shipped.

Bumping

scripts/set-version.sh 1.4.1          # edit the version
scripts/set-version.sh 1.4.1 --tag    # …and commit + tag v1.4.1

The script validates that the argument is semver, then rewrites three places and refreshes Cargo.lock. Run with no argument to print the current version.

[workspace.package].version in the root Cargo.toml, the one number every crate inherits.
[package.metadata.generate-rpm].version, with - replaced by ~: RPM forbids a hyphen in Version, and 1.0.0~rc.2 sorts below 1.0.0 where 1.0.0-rc.2 would not.
PKGBUILD, the binary package: _ver (Cargo’s version, which names the release tarball), _tag (v$version) and pkgver (the version with hyphens dropped, since pkgver may not contain one). Its sha256sums stays SKIP in the repository: scripts/packaging/make-arch-tarball.sh writes a copy pinned to the tarball it builds, and the release publishes that copy.

Two more files follow on their own:

PKGBUILD-git derives pkgver from git describe, so the tag is what moves it — 1.0.0-rc.1 plus 3 commits becomes 1.0.0rc.1.r3.g51822a84.
CHANGELOG.md is generated by git-cliff from the commit log between tags.

Cargo.lock is tracked (.gitignore re-includes it with !/Cargo.lock) and carries every crate’s version, so the refreshed lockfile belongs in the bump commit. --tag stages only Cargo.toml and PKGBUILD, so amend the lockfile in before pushing.

Release checklist

scripts/set-version.sh <version> --tag
git cliff --tag v<version> -o CHANGELOG.md and commit the changelog
git push --follow-tags

Which number to pick follows semver: fix: commits since the last tag → patch, feat: → minor, a !/BREAKING CHANGE commit → major. Pre-releases use a dotted suffix (1.0.0-rc.2). The packaging files spell that differently on purpose (pacman drops the hyphen, RPM turns it into ~), so 1.0.0rc.2 and 1.0.0~rc.2 are both correct.